falcon lake Archives - LAKE FORK GUIDE ANDREW GRILLS

It’s nice to be back home on Lake Fork. After spending a couple weeks on Falcon Lake guiding in August, and then taking some time to visit family in Tennessee, now it’s time to get back to guiding on Lake Fork. My new Skeeter FX21 should be ready any day now, so that’s going to be a treat for my customers and I.

Lake Fork is looking good right now. The lake is right a full pool, and the fishing is ok for September. The fishing generally gets better and better as the weather cools down.

October is a good month for fishing and I still have some open days available, so be sure to check with me if you’re thinking about a trip to Lake Fork.

Falcon Lake was not quite as good this year as it was last year. We still caught some giants, and had some pretty good numbers days too. It is possible to catch as many little bass as you want down there, but that’s of no concern to me. We were looking for bigger fish, and most days that worked out pretty well. We will keep and eye on the lake level over the next year to determine if we need to make another trip next August.

Here are some highlights from the short time we were down there…

Just wrapped up 3 weeks on Falcon Lake. All the customers I fished with down there are regular customers of mine who had fished with me several times previously on Lake Fork. This little trip was just a change of scenery and a new challenge for a few weeks.

Falcon is currently about 34 feet low, the lake dropped approximately 4 feet over the three weeks I was there. This scenario makes for good fishing temporarily. The fish were concentrated, however the low water makes them susceptible to being caught and handled by sport fisherman and the Mexican commercial fisherman as well. In order for the fishing to continue to improve the lake needs more water to protect the fishery.

I fished off shore structure the entire time. This pattern produced 25 to 30 fish on my worst day, and we had several days with over 100 fish. I probably averaged 60 to 70 bass per day. I was satisfied with our numbers and quality to the point that I felt no need to deviate.

The majority of the fish were from yearling size up to about 3 pounds. However, every day I was able to manage about 5 to 10 quality bites, with our best five fish usually upwards of 30 pounds. Truly giant fish were hard to come by, however we lost a few, and boated a few.

We fished a lot of rocky areas and house foundations, and this accounted for much of our numbers. However, there was quite a bit of pressure on the obvious stuff. As time went by, I had to find more obscure, isolated boulders to get bigger bites. Some of my best rocks were nowhere near a ledge. Every day I made a point to set aside an hour or two to look at new water. Using my 2D sonar and side scan I looked for isolated rock piles. The community hole ledges on Falcon are typically huge veins of ledge rock that extend several hundred yards. While all these areas have a sweet spot they still cover a fairly large area. Where I did best for bigger fish was just isolated rocks in areas where there was a pretty smooth bottom all around and not necessarily on a drop or ledge. Below is a picture of exactly what I was looking for.

Football jigs, deep and mid range crankbaits, and heavy Texas rigs were all that I used.

While fishing Falcon Lake was fun, it’s good to be back to work at home doing Lake Fork guide trips again!

Here are some fish from each trip on Falcon. No two pictures of the same fish.