I decided to spend the day on Deer Trail Ranch yesterday and fish both lakes. The previous fishing report on Deer Trail was right on - it was difficult paddling from the "ramp" out to open water. I was glad I had bought a kayak paddle to replace the old wooden one. There were a LOT more pads on the lake than there were last year, and correspondingly a lot less open water. There were no real grass mats, either. Anyway, by the time the sun broke over the treetops, I had boated three 3-pounders, all on a white buzz bait. I caught a few dinks on a wacky-rigged Senko, a couple on a Ribbit frog, and one more on a purple buzz bait, but all of the rest came on a chartreuse shad Rat-L-Trap. When I stopped fishing at 11:30, my notes showed that I had caught a total of 20 bass up to 3-04. Most of the 'trap fish hit on retrieves after casting into gaps in the pads. Only one hit in "deep" water away from the pads. I boated no big fish, but those two-pounders didn't know that they only weighed 2 pounds - they fought hard!   The water was very clear with temps of 79^° to 84°. I had been hearing loud pigs most of the morning. While fishing along the dam, a big black one came down to drink. I don't know whether it was a hog or a sow, a razorback or a feral, but it was big. It almost turned itself inside out trying to get back up and over the dam when I snorted at it. A flock of about 50 Canada geese flew over in formation, followed by six more a few minutes later. Pretty. 0verall, it was a very nice morning to be on the water.

At 11:30, I packed it up and moved the mile or so to Timber Lake. There, the water temps were 79^° to 84^° with visibility of 3-4 feet. I fished the dam first, catching only a dink on a 'trap and one 2-pounder on a shad pattern, deep-diving squarebill.  I figured that the better bass were going to be fairly deep, so I concentrated on the creek channel in the south arm of the lake. No results. Zip. I finally located the bass holding on timber between 4 and 7 feet deep - with a very few even shallower. Some were just off the creek channel edges, and some were on the flats. These bass were even stronger than the ones at Deer Trail. I caught one on a white buzz bait, but all the rest of my fish hit a Pit Boss. Color didn't seem to matter at all. I used black/blue flake until I ran out of those, and then caught them on green pumpkin, black/red flake, and an orange/blue. They hit both 4- and 5-inch versions of the bait. The bass were extremely aggressive, too. They hit the bait on the drop, while I was deadsticking, when I moved it , and on the retrieve back to recast. Some of them even followed the bait all the way back to the boat before hitting. One of the biggest fish short-lined me as I was pulling the lure from the water. For a while there, it was almost like fishing in Mexico, with a fish on every cast. The action never did really taper down to what I'd call 'slow.'

Several things I did notice about the bass in Timber Lake. First, there are a LOT of them that looked exactly alike:  two pounds, very short and fat (one 2.5 was only 13" long!), and having a yellowish instead of a white belly. I'd seen yellowish fish at Timber before, but never THIS yellow . Within the same size, they all could have been cast from the same mold, too - it was uncanny.  Second, they were as strong as any bass I've ever caught. Even the two-pounders had me reaching for my net. When my arms finally gave out at 5:30, I gave it up. My notes showed that once I had found the right depth, I had caught fish on as many as six casts in a row. I ended the afternoon with a total of 36 bass, harvesting about a third of them. None of the bass were as large as I'd have liked, but the two biggest pulled my scales down to just over 4 pounds. I caught those two on consecutive casts to the same leaning log. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and ended a great day of bass fishing.

One note for any 'beginners' on the forum:  I was using 14# mono at Deer Trail and 65# yellow Sufix 832 braid with no leader at Timber.

The 2-pound bass in Timber were even yellower than this:

Posted By: Tom Dillon