Reservation Number : 40946
Property Name : Hat and Star Ranch
Reservation Date : 09/22/2024 AM -
Total Fish/Sizes : 7
Lures Used : Everything

My wife and i arrived at this beautiful lake about 7 pm yesterday and what a beautiful view!  Nice little pond right in front of the cabin adjacent to the main lake. However we hit a hitch in the plan almost immediately upon entering the cute little fishing cabin.  There is no bathroom or shower in the cabin lol.  The bathroom is located about 25' to the uphill side of the cabin in another small outhouse building that is not air conditioned (wall unit was blowing hot air inside).   There is a shower in that buiding which is a very small travel trailer sized set up. If you are tall and broad shouldered like me, good luck lol.   To keep my marriage intact, i opted to call a quick audible and we drove another half hour to the holiday in express in longview for the night.

Now, on to the fishing!   It was a calm blue bird morning with very little wind and HUMID.  Water clarity was great, probably close to 3'.  The bites we found were soft, and not agressive at all. All bites came a good distance off the bank with fish staging near the underwater timber.  All our fish came on soft swimbaits with a Gill profile on a 3/0 BKK hook.  They did not want anything with a blade, or anything making any kind of noise. We never locked in what we felt like was a solid "Pattern", we caught fish all over the lake.  This lake has what is probably the most intense forage base i have ever seen.  We saw absolutely massive bait balls getting crushed by bass and ran our baits through them but just could not pull the fish off of em. I did some strolling and watched some BIG bass swim up to my jighead and minnow set up, and swim away.  They were just being pretty tight lipped!   Scoping around with the LVS and these giant bait balls were EVERYWHERE.   All and all we put 7 in the box for the table, and sent back 2 overs.  I spent about an hour from 11 till noon graphing around and marking some brush piles for our next visit. On our next trip i will dial in on those and try to locate some of the GIANTS in this lake.  Keep your eyes peeled and wear good polorized glasses! There are ALOT of trees about 10- 18" under the surface and i almost went swimming when i found one running the TM at a decent clip lol.  The ranch is absolutely beautiful and the cabin would make an excellent bunk for a couple buddys, or a father son type trip!  However, if your wife is not accustomed to deer camp, or fish camp life in this case,  you might be better off to leave her at home or book a local hotel rather than the cabin lol.