me and a buddy are heading out to eagle mountain tomorrow in the boat, any advice would be great. i have not been on the lake in years. Are the sandbass hitting? and what depth should we target chanels and blues?

thank yall josh

Be cautious of the North end, it is very shallow. Best of luck to you.

Yes sir, north end is tricky. I bought on the lake last year. I only have about a foot of water at the dock. Only put the boat in the water two times since I moved. We didn’t find any fish last trip. But we’re going to give it another try this week.

I’m guessing it should be close to spawning season for the cats? Have they moved up to shallow water?

The catfish won't spawn for another month or so but they'll feed up heavily on shad before then.

I don't know much about Eagle Mountain but the shad are about to spawn all over north Texas and in some lakes, they're already doing it. Get you a small cast net and go down to the water's edge at first light. You should be able to throw the net 1 foot from the bank and load up on fresh shad. Use them about a foot under a bobber and fish within 5 or 10 feet of the bank. You shouldn't have any problem catching channels and blues up to about 10 pounds doing this. I usually like to fish rocky banks during this time but it doesn't have to be. We do our best during the shad spawn in the back of main lake coves that are close to deep water. Best fishing will be daybreak until about 8:30 or 9 am.

Here's an example of the kind of spot I look for.....




This is the north side of my home lake. You'll do even better if there's a south wind blowing into these areas. I always cut my shad in half. If you get to an area and don't get a bite withing 5 or 10 minutes, move to another spot. When the fish are there, they'll bite like crazy. We've had days that we've caught up to a hundred catfish in a day during this time. It should last at least two or three weeks or even more.

One thing that'll help you find them is to watch for egrets and herons. They'll cruise the banks picking up the shad. If you see several birds along a bank, you can bet the fish will be there.

Thank you skeet master, we will be throwing the cast net first thing in the morning. I will change the setup for some shallow fishing!

Just to update you, went out yesterday afternoon at Grapevine and only managed a few fish. I don't know if the rain from this weekend changed something, but we didn't find the fish in the usual spots. I'm hoping that a few days of warmer weather will kick it back off. The main lake water temp was sitting at 66 degrees. I believe the shad spawn at around 70, so the cold rain may have interrupted it.

I should have gone prepared to fish the right way yesterday. My wife loves catching catfish on a bobber in shallow water, but does not enjoy casting lines out and waiting for a bite. We should've been up in the mouth of the river yesterday. I was seeing tons of debris floating in the lake which means there was a lot of current coming into the lake from the river. I'm betting the bite was really good in the current up there. Should, coulda, woulda....

The mouth was not that good on Sunday. Spent most of the day up there moving from place to place and only managed 7 fish. The water up in Denton Creek was moving hard and the water coming in was only at 59 degrees.

For EM......I've had some pretty good luck picking up blues in 20 - 25ft on cut shad. Usually fishing in that late afternoons........

I’ve been catching a few channels, blues, and one flathead in about 7’ of water on chicken. Look for some sort of bottom structure or topo change. A guy that I fish around recently caught a 32.5 LB blue in 7’ of water on a big cut shad head but it was at 3:00 AM. I’ve been trying the heavy shad schools along the dam in 20’-35’ of water with no luck.

Get u some stubbys cheese and a slip cork and load the boat good luck