Jun 26 2016
Zach Milwood
Fingerling
Member Since :
2010
Number of Posts :
55
My dad and I fished Dogwood Lakes West lake on Saturday. This was an all-day trip, and we topped out at 20 fish total. Having fished the East lake last fall, we were curious to see how the West one would stack up. Here are my observations:
East Lake - caught a big fish right off the bat, 8-13; however, EVERYTHING after that were dinks.
West Lake - only harvested 7 out of 20; most fish were in the 3-6lbs range and good fighters. the harvested fish were all right around 14". we didn't have any dinks at all.
East Lake - lots of room to fish with 20+ acres, appears to be deeper water
West Lake - surprisingly small. water level was down and was chocolate milk - maybe 6" of visibility. with all of the rain we've had this spring, I expected it to be much higher. the lake is listed at 12 acres, but a portion of that is "off limits", so you're probably at about 10 acres.
Other notables for our West Lake visit:
Fish were ON the brush piles. Not near them, not on the outskirts, not beside them, ON them. Brush piles were cedar trees and they were raised out of the water by 1-2'. For our morning session starting at 6am, we caught them on Flashy Owner rigs, flukes, 1 on a Rat-L-Trap, 2 on a C-rig, and 1 on a Senko. Fish were healthy and good fighters. A few fish were caught on points, but most were on the cedar trees. For our afternoon session starting at 1pm, we caught NOTHING. Did not have a single bite, and we emptied our tackle boxes trying to get something started. We had partly cloudy skies, barely any breeze, and about 92 degrees. Water was very warm, which I attributed to the shallowness of the water as well as the fact that it's June in Tx. :-)
Good trip overall. Disappointing that we couldn't even get a tap for the afternoon session, especially since we had caught 20 in the morning. Maybe all the fish went to the restricted area for a siesta - I don't know. For those who have never visited the property, it's a beautiful setting back in the woods. We saw three deer during our trip.
Jun 26 2016
Steve Alexander
Admin
Member Since :
2002
Number of Posts :
1169
Zach,
Excellent and informative report. Your assessment is spot on and consistent with the electrofishing survey we did last fall and the angling I have done at Dogwood. The east lake is similar to Gilmer Hat and Star with a handful of giant bass and lots of smaller bass with low numbers of 2-6 lb fish. The west lake is almost just the opposite with lots of bass in the 3-5 lb range.
Please note, that I believe, we will see a lot more 2-6 lb fish in the east lake by this time next year. We have gotten aggressive with the harvest of small fish leaving more food for the Junior Varsity (1-3 lb bass) to eat. Moreover, Tilapia have been introduced to feed the bass this year. Increased harvest, additional forage (Tilapia) and additional habitat (red cedar) is an awesome combination to grow bass.
There have been more than a dozen 8lb plus fish reported to the club from the east lake this year. Unfortunately, not all these fish make it to the fishing reports section. IMO, this lake is a top 5 lake in the club for producing big bass. If your goal is to catch a big one, fish the east lake.
West Lake produced 20 bass in a morning of fishing with 13 bass between 3-6 lbs. Catching numbers of solid fish at the end of June is pretty awesome.