Reservation Number : 33772
Property Name : Frannies Lake
Reservation Date : 09/11/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 27 up to 5lbs 2ozs
Lures Used : sqbill and flipping

Fished with my good friend Sean Conway this morning and couldn’t have asked for a better later summer/early fall morning. 

1. Wind was present, but maxed out at 8-9mph, variable, water clarity was heavily stained on the South, shallow end to 1.5ft viz or less and clearer on the North end to 3ft+, water temps were lower 80s, 
2. They lake went from what I believe 3+ ft down to full recently and the marginal vegetation exploded – lake is in really good shape.  It seems that ALOT of ostrich fern had been growing in the space that was previously dry.  When the lake filled, it pulled up and is sitting hydroponically on the surface of the water.  
3. The bass moved in right on the edge and under this stuff and spread out into this ‘new’ part of the lake (see attached pictures).  We heard them deep in it crashing bait at various points. 
4. The previous pond weed line is now submerged, and there were some bass sitting in the top of it. You sort of had to visualize where that weed line was under the surface.  
5. If there was a pattern, this was it – some type of moving bait to barely clip the top of the pond weed or flipping a TRIG into the fern or buzz bait/frog into the lanes that were available. 
6. Greens >>> Redbug/Junebugs which are my go to colors in summer for East Texas – I wasted alot of time pitching stuff they had no interest in. 
7. We caught some fish around the timber, but they seemed to be hanging directly underneat the tops of it in the upper part of the water column.  A wacky rig setup probably would have been good but I didn’t bring the right setups. 
8. Noted several pods of shad early but very little bluegill activity. 
9. As typical in early fall/late summer, the bass were spread out all over the lake, some super shallow, some deeper, and everywhere in between.  We fished shallow for the most part and in some cases, really really shallow (as far south as you could go) and found fish there. 
10. Fishing was somewhat slower than my previous trips but those were late fall when the fish were all grouped up or in prespawn and stacked in specific staging areas.  I consider this effort pretty typical for this time of year and what you would expect – solid to good fishing but you aren’t going to find 30 in one spot – 2 here, 1 here, etc. 
11. Fish classes: the 1-3 year classes are doing well (100-110% of RW on average) and there is ample shad in the lake to support their growth. The larger fish are doing better in some instances, some were skinny, but this isn’t an exact science and it is going to take a few more seasons for the harvest efforts to truly pay off like it already has for the sub 17”s. They haven’t started the fall feed yet, so their relative weights haven’t picked back up from what was a very hot summer.  
12. Tilapia would go a long way in this lake IMO (not that anyone asked for it) to provide some prolific, larger forage for the 17”+ classes of bass.  I’d be interested in a PSD of the bluegill from a survey. 
13. Side note – I’m not a whopper plopper guy but I did catch my two largest in the far south end with the stained water on a whopper plopper.  It only took 14 years (they came out when I really got back into bass fishing in the late oughts) for my first whopper plopper fishes.  I just always preferred a buzzbait.