Reservation Number : 32807
Property Name : The Bigwoods on the Trinity
Reservation Date : 05/30/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 45+
Lures Used : Chatterbait, Fluke, Stick Worm, and many more.

Fellow PWF member Tommy Reyna and I fished Bigwoods twice in 10 days. May 21st and 30th

First trip to Bigwoods we boated 21 bass and missed just as many due to bad hook sets/bass getting off at the boat. 

Water is stained and I would estimate 2 to 3 feet low. The lake does not look like the photos or video. See attached pics. Many of things that would have been under water were above water. Now this is good for learning where the laydowns and stuctures are for when the water is back to normal depths. Many times we found we were in 1 to 2 feet of water. Had to use the pole and oar to unbeach on multiple occastions. We did find the main channel and the deeper water towards the dam. This would range from 4 to 10 feet deep. Water was warm around upper 80’s. Windy in the morning and then died off before the storm came. The morning bite was very active on top water frogs. We were just bad at timing the hook set. I did hook one but it wrapped my 17 lb fluoro around a stump and broke off. After many missed fish, I said screw this and went to the bread and butter – weightless T-Rig - 7 and 1/8th inch Bass Pro Stik-O black with blue fleck. First cast and caught a 5 pounder. This was closer to the dam in the southwest corner. About 5 to 6 feet of water. We worked our way up the dam and Tommy also caught a 5 pounder on the same worm. So before we got off the water around noon. We had about 10 fish about 2 to 5 pounds. Great start.

After lunch we headed back and hung out at the nice boat dock that is partially covered with shade to escape the sun. Tommy bought some punch bait and caught a decent catfish from the channel near the boat dock. It as returned. The catfish come to the dock for the fish feeder. A bit later we were back at it on the water. Mostly fishing the SW corner/Dam/Timber/Main channel. This was were we got the most luck. Fish were blowing up on dragonflies all day. Then the clouds rolled in and the bite died with the wind. Fast forward and the sun is getting low behind the clouds. We know we only have about 30 minutes left. I made a huge mistake and didn’t pack for the trip/check my stock of the previously mentioned go to worm. We only had about 3 in the boat and ripped through or lost them all. For some reason the bass love the larger size over the traditional 5 inch stick worm. So I went through my arsenal looking for long black with blue fleck worms. I found my pack of Googan Squad Mondo 10 inch worms. I put a small bullet weight on since this wasn’t going to sink like a stick worm. I had it just sitting close to where Tommy graphed 3 large fish on a small patch of grass/hump. This was near the end of the timber closest to the dam and off to the left about 5 to 10 feet. I was just about to give up on that lure because i had no bites. Half way through the sentence of telling Tommy that I was going to switch, FISH ON. It bit and bolted towards the timber. It felt good and once it breached to shake it’s huge mouth we knew it was huge. Great fight to pull it away from the timber three times. Under the boat and multiple dives, this fish fought hard. Tommy missed it with the supplied net a couple of times. This fish kept diving under the boat and pulling my rod into the water. We finally net it and Tommy is shocked to see it. Immediately got her unhooked. Her mouth had clearance around my closed fist getting the hook. I kept asking “is this it, is this the one?”. I quickly gently dipper her back in the water so that we could put as little stress on the bass as possible and keep her breathing. The scale hit 9.02 and bounced to 8.92 and 9. So I called it a 9. My new PB! Dipped her again forgetting that there is a live well on the boat. Got her back out for photos and measurement (roughly 24 inches) then quickly released her when she was ready. She gave us a huge tail splash send off. It was beautiful! For those few minutes it was Tommy, myself and the biggest bass of my life so far. The world melted away for a brief moment. That is what PWF is all about. Escape. This experience got us to book a 2nd trip the following weekend. 

Second trip was higher numbers. This time flukes, stick worms (I stocked up this time), and small chatterbaits worked like crazy. This time we caught 45 plus and lost count. We had 7 culls in the morning which we put in the fish basket under the dock before leaving for lunch. 10 culls in the evening. There was a 30+ minute frenzy at the end of the day that we were doubling up and lost count of how many we caught. Missed a 5+ pounder that came off at the boat near the previously mentioned timber. It was crazy fun. We knew where to go and figured out what they wanted. Black and blue fleck stick worms and shad grey or white flukes. No 5 pound plus fish this trip but it was fun none the less.

Notice to future visitors. When we were docking for the evening, there were HUGE spiders under the dock AND 2 water mocassins attacking and biting at the fish basket. I always follow the membership rules but I wasn’t about to reach for a fish basket that had 2 snakes actively biting it. So I put the other 10 culls from the live well back in the water.Sorry but not going to chance it with snakes and we didn’t have a cooler to take them home. Also – We think we saw a phone with a orange/pink/red case in the water near the west side of the lake. We tried multiple times to net it but the soil kept getting disturbed and we would lose site of it.

This is a beautiful property with a lot of fun to be had catching fish. It has a good 14 foot – 3 bass seats – aluminum boat that has a trolling motor with 3 batteries hooked up. It’s very stable to stand in and comfortable to sit. It’s in my top 5 list of club boats. The property has decent lodging close to the lake. The only issue that we had is that they didn’t know we were coming. So the room was over 90 degrees when we arrived. Kicked the AC on and picked the room with a ceilin fan. We were fine in a few hours. We will definitely come back to this property. 

PWF properties have been on fire for the last year or so. I have broken my personal best 5 times since last October. 2022 is looking good for PWF members.