San Saba – Waco Creek Ranch

My brother and I fished Waco Creek on Friday May 18th. Made the trip up from the Houston area Thursday evening the 17th and stayed in the cabin on location. Nothing like getting up early and loading the boat as it is just light enough to see. Not much sleep in anticipation to what we hoped to be an awesome “catching” instead of “fishing” day.

This place is MAGICAL, Remote and it happens to be our favorite club lake so far.

As it got light enough to see, we quickly assessed that only about half of the lake was accessible by boat & trolling motor due to the low water level and high weed, grass, coontail, milfoil growth, etc. This area could sure use some good rain to get the lake level up. The ranch foreman we spoke to mentioned they are going to treat the lake to kill off some of the vegetation to open up the lake sometimes this week. That should help a lot. We were a little discouraged at first knowing that we could not fish the entire lake. The ranches large 18 foot Grizzly Tracker boat with front and back end trolling motors is just too big to navigate the entire lake at the current water level. A kayak and paddle would be about the only way you could get back into some of the fingers and then you would be fishing in about an inch of water with the vegetation just under the water surface. Would loved to have chunked the big whopper plopper or maybe a yellow magic top water back in some of those areas to see what was lurking around in there.

The morning started off really, really sloooooooow. We caught a discouraging but good 5 or 6 fish by 9 AM. Tried various baits, numerous casts and then ☺………..great balls of San Saba fire, it finally turned on. This is why we made the five (5) hour commute from Deer Park, Texas to this very special location. We know the lake is holding lots of quality bass and sooner or later the dinner bell is going to eventually ring. The steady winds hammered us all day and wore us down at times. Small price to pay for the final catch results.

At the end of the day the final fish tally was 66 good solid bass. Not bad results for fishing 20 acres of a 40 acre lake. 13 hours of grinding it out in unruly winds produced a range from 3 to 8 pound bass. I had a 5 fish sack pushing 30 pounds and my brothers 5 fish sack was pushing around 24 pounds. Only 7 culls out of the 66 bass. That’s very impressive. We saw some big bass, via polarized sunglasses, that we know exceeded 10 pounds in the crystal clear water meandering around for bait fish. One of those fish was an “absolute giant” sitting in a clearing that was about the size of a big bath-tub. At first I thought it was a grass carp it was so big. No, she was Bassy! Big Bassy! I threw in there at least 20 times hoping to get a reaction strike. She was in no mood and showed no signs of aggressive behavior. She moved on and so did we. But she got us both excited in hopes of finding her hungry later on in the day. Never saw her again. Hard to tell just how big she really was but guessing she might have been the new Waco Creek lake record…….

The biggest fish of the day was caught on a Carolina rigged Zoom Swimming Super Fluke Paddle Tail Bluegill Flash (see photo). As a matter of fact, I only caught the one fish on this particular color of fluke paddle tail. She was caught towards the end of the day around 5:45 PM in an area smack dab in the middle of the open part of the lake. I had just commented to my brother that this area had not produced anything all day. No sooner than the words fell out of my mouth, I was setting the hook and the fight was on - the drag was a little light and getting stripped. I had to adjust the drag in the heat of the moment to gain ground on her. You know when an 18’ foot boat suddenly changes direction and is getting pulled along you quickly realize there is a decent size “Green Mama Godzilla” on the line. Braid and 20 Pound Flurocarbon Leader - Smoking Tight Line! She did not want to come to the boat and pulled harder than many of the 10 plus pounders I have caught over the years……………but as the attached photo shows she did get lipped, kissed and dipped (released). If big bass only knew that the worst thing that could possibly happen is that they are required to participate in a family fish photo moment, maybe they all would be a little more cooperative towards us hopeful anglers.

The Zoom Z Craws & Chatters Baits we love & have produced so much success with lately just did not produce at all. Nothing! Go figure…………..to tell you the truth, every bait we threw that was producing on this trip eventually shut completely off sooner or later, forcing us to move on the something else.

So many awesome lakes available to PWF club members. With out a doubt, this club lake is on our annual “must fish lake bucket list”, at least a couple of times every year. Well worth the trip, we can’t wait to return and do it again. If you have not fished this lake, what are you waiting for? You need to get it booked ASAP before the real summer heat sets in. You won’t be disappointed.

What baits worked:

Black Whopper Plopper - produced at least 12 vicious strikes/catches (the large size - see photo of bait)
Zoom Super Fluke Paddle Tail (only one fish - see photo of the biggest fish producing bait of the trip)
Zoom Super Fluke Paddle Tail White Pearl (produced many catches for both of us)
The Famous “Cheeto” (candy corn bass pro tournament senko style bait produced many catches)
3 Foot Diving Square Bill Crank Bait (produced several of the bigger fish - see photo of bait)

Posted By: Philip Pruitt