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March madness means the big month for big Texas bass

By Ray Sasser, The Dallas Morning News, Source: MCT News Service

DALLAS _ Believe it or not, Texas is on the cusp of spring weather. Monday was the first day of March, and March is the premier month of the state's traditional big bass season. It's shaping up as a good one.

Nine Toyota ShareLunkers have already been entered in the Texas Parks and Wildlife big bass hatchery program, which continues through April. A ShareLunker weighs a minimum of 13 pounds, and the current entries are led by a 15.09-pounder from Choke Canyon Reservoir.

There's no telling where the next big fish might bite. Feb. 20 was a classic example. Lunkers were caught at Lake Amistad, on the Rio Grande near Del Rio, and at Lake Livingston, in the Piney Woods north of Houston. In fact, the fish were caught 10 minutes and nearly 500 miles apart.

Robert Robles of Del Rio caught the Amistad lunker, a fish that weighed 13.50 pounds. Robert Laird Sr., of Livingston caught the lunker from Lake Livingston. It weighed 13.19 pounds. That's a new lake record, surpassing the old mark of 12.45 pounds set in 1987, and is the venerable east Texas lake's first ShareLunker.

Livingston is 90,000 acres, formed by impounding the Trinity River in 1969. Along with Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend, Livingston shined the national bass fishing spotlight directly on east Texas.

Rayburn, which is 114,000 acres, was impounded in 1965. Toledo Bend, 185,000 acres, followed two years later. Texas shares Toledo Bend with neighboring Louisiana.

Together, the east Texas triumvirate formed more than 300,000 acres of prime fishing water in the same decade, attracting fishing guides and anglers from across the country.

In those days, an eight-pounder was a monster bass, and fishermen typically kept 15 bass a day. Even in the golden era of the 1960s and '70s, bass anglers recognized March as a pivotal big-fish month.

That reality is solidified by big bass documented through the ShareLunker program. Nearly 43 percent of the 480 entries were caught in March. The program originally began each year in January and continued through April. Now it begins in October and continues through April.

March is historically the peak spawning season for Lake Fork and other east Texas hotspots. Fork has dominated the program with 243 entries. Only five other lakes have produced more than 10 of the big fish. Lake Alan Henry has 25, followed by Rayburn, 23, Conroe, 16, Choke Canyon, 13, and Falcon, 11.

Mineola bass pro Kelly Jordon pays close attention to tournament results from all the good fishing lakes. He was dismayed in early February by a poor tournament showing at Rayburn, where catches are traditionally impressive.

"The water is unusually cold," said Jordon. "We haven't had a winter this cold in several years. In fact, there's probably not a bass alive at Sam Rayburn that's ever seen water this cold before."

Surface temperatures at most Dallas-area lakes were a chilly mid-40s last week. Falcon was mid-50s; Choke Canyon and Amistad were both 51. The spawn usually starts in earnest when the water temperature reaches 60 degrees.

The spawn is important for big bass fishing because it's the one time of the year when lunkers spend an appreciable amount of time in relatively shallow water. It's much easier to put a lure in front of a fish in six feet of water than in 20 feet.

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(c) 2010, The Dallas Morning News.

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