Each week I create a detailed fishing report for Lake Travis that offer 5+ pins in Google Earth that show you EXACTLY where I am fishing, what baits I am throwing, how to work the bait, what colors to use, how to position your boat, etc. Water clarity is typical Travis conditions, gin clear on the lower end of the lake and a bit more stained the further up the river you go. I recommend starting off with a small profile shad colored crankbait, a 4 paddle tail swimbait rigged weedless, or a Alabama Rig with small 3-4 paddle tail swimbaits. During this time of year bass also tend to hang out in schools out deep. Fall is a close second to springtime for me as the numbers of fish you catch are excellent, and later in the fall you start to see lots of big fish being caught. We will cover patterning bass, understanding the current conditions, what baits to throw and why, where to look for bass deepening on seasonality, and so much more! Summertime fishing can be hit or miss for a lot of anglers, but I promise you, if you put in the time and learn how bass behave and why certain conditions make them behave a certain way, you will be more successful. Also, the timing for fishing these locations is important, as the heat will cause the fish to suspend and become inactive. Lee Benton Fishing Guides Austin, The fishing on Lake Travis is holding strong as summer is officially here. For the cost of a couple crankbaits I will show you the patterns and spots I am catching fish on with paid clients. Look for bright spots on the bottom where the male bass has cleared away sediment from the rock with his tail. A watermelon red trick worm on a shakey head has been our ticket the last few weeks. Warmer water instinctively tells the fish that it is time to build nests and lay eggs. THE ULTIMATE LAKE EXPERIENCE OPENING MAY 13 A Revolutionary Floating Water Park, Challenge Course and Private Island Getaway! A Texas rig with a creature bait and a pegged weight can work very well for making accurate pitches at a bed. Understanding what is going on beneath the surface of the lake, not only with largemouth bass, but also with the other species of fish in the lake, can help you become a better angler. I mean isnt Lake Travis made up mostly of rock yes and no. Lake Travis is Central Texas' largest water storage reservoir, holding over three hundred billion gallons. Shad patterns work well too, but something about a crawfish colored crankbait bumping along the bottom kicking up sand and silt just triggers those bass into biting. You need to be wearing polarized glasses in order to bed fish effectively. If we have several more cold fronts it could push back the spawn. Lake Travis Water Levels Are Way Down Due To Drought. When they are not on the surface, make long casts and let your bait sink 8-12 feet deep before beginning your retrieve. During the fall bass eat a lot of shad, however they still continue to feed on bluegill and crawfish. Brush piles, rock piles, docks, staircases, etc. For these trips the focus of the trip is to teach you to be successful on your own. My Saturday and Sunday trips book up fast! My biggest piece of advice this time of year is to get out early while its cool, avoid the weekends when its busy, and pack lots of cold drinks! Often times they like to make their nests directly next to some cover such as old stumps, rocks, or shallow anchor blocks from docks. Currently the bass are spawning on Lake Travis. As of right now, I have been doing best targeting the points at the entrance to coves and fishing as far back as about halfway into the coves. When trying to mimic shad though, go with natural colors such as chrome, white and black, or something with a little purple in it. Catching them will soon be on more moving baits such as spinner baits, crank baits, swimbaits, etc. I fish it kind of as a combination of how I fish the morning and mid day bite. This is important because it brings cool, oxygenated water and food to the bass. Town Lake, Travis FISHING Annual Weather Averages The upper end of Lake Travis feels more like fishing a river. If you do not feel it was worth your hard earned money I will gladly refund your money. Cover as much water as possible and fish fast! Once I find the fish I like to slow down and pick the area apart with a slower moving bait, then go back to the moving baits. I do not have any weekends open in March, however I do have a very limited number of weekday spots open. Jigs, ned rigs, drop shots, and Texas rigs are all good ways to present a bait slowly along the bottom to entice that feeding bite. With the gin clear water its very important to match the the size of your bait to the shad. Subtle movements with your rod tip, smaller dragging motions to the side, and a slower reeling presentation with moving baits tends to do better when the weather is hot and the water is hot. If you are visiting the area, want to try your hand at fishing Lake Travis, or want to book a coaching trip to get better at fishing, I would love to take you! These are paid reports that I update every Thursday at 6PM and include 5+ EXACT locations on the lake where I am catching fish with my clients. As I mentioned earlier, you can also catch bass fishing fast this time of year. There is no central/single point of access. It was 71 degrees across most of the lake this past week, but expect that to keep slowly going down as we get further into fall. Look for points and drains close to spawning coves with deep water nearby. Threadfin Shad are one of the main food sources for largemouth bass. These small easy to eat morsels are perfect for finicky bass. We will approach the day almost as if we were practicing for a tournament. As we move into early fall, we are finding fish near creek channel swing banks, on the main lake. We will cover things like bait selection based on seasonal patterns, ways to more effectively fish deep, what to look for based on current conditions etc. During this time of year I rely a lot on my fish finders to help me locate these offshore schools of bass. Now with that said, these fish are not easy to catch. So what does this cold weather mean for the bass fishing? What does that say about Lake Travis?? I recommend throwing this on braided line with a fluorocarbon leader. Topwater Spook I love throwing a shad colored walking style bait such as a Zara Spook, Sammy, or Gunfish. If the slow presentation wont draw a bite, switch baits to something fast moving. We are catching them on a number of baits such as soft plastics, jigs and crank baits. A quick tip is to look for Blue Herons and Egrets, these birds feed on the shad and are a dead giveaway to the presence of bait fish. My focus is to keep them busy catching fish, learning about what we are doing, and engage them to prevent them from getting bored or fussy. The second pattern I recommend is slowing down and fishing a Texas rigged plastic craw. ), As far as baits go, there are a couple that I recommend you keep tied on. Lake Travis in April : r/Austin - Reddit It is part of the Colorado River and is fed by overflow from Lake Travis. Lake Travis Fishing Report | Your Monthly Guide to Fishing Lake Travis A good indication of this is if you follow my Instagram account and see me posting a lot of photos from my trips at Lake Decker! I dont want to have my boat positioned too far back into the creeks. For more aggressive and active fish I like to jig a silver ounce jigging spoon around these schools of fish to trigger bites. Good luck and may the best angler win! The A rig and the crankbait are effective ways to burn the bank and cover water. Now on those overcast or stormy days this will change, but lately the weather has been pretty stable. If you can hit the fish on the head with your bait right after they jump, you will get bit almost every time. Often times when the bass strikes your bait it is very quick and they usually spit it back out. Largemouth bass are at their heaviest when they are full or eggs but have yet to lay them. There are more of these below the water line, and this is where the fish congregate. Towards the ends of April you will also begin seeing Threadfin and Gizzard Shad spawn in the lake. I know weve already passed up the first official day of fall, but keep in mind this is Central Texas. All of these baits can be fished deep effectively yet slowed down to maintain bottom contact. The further up river you go the more stained the water gets. Knowing when a thermocline is present can help significantly in figuring out how deep to fish. Overall, the climate of the Lake Travis and Lake Austin area is temperate with mild winters and relatively low humidity. Lake Travis Hotels Change baits often and rotate through your arsenal of lures to draw bites. Hit them with a fast moving reaction bait, they follow up with a more subtle plastic. A deep crankbait, a fluke on a heavy scrounger head, or a Biffle bug on a swinging jig head fished on the bottom can work well. Another bait I throw is a or ounce football jig in brown/ black. One thing I always remind clients is that not every fish in the lake bee lines it for the bank. A ounce brown and orange football jig with a speed craw for a trailer is a deadly combination. Once you determine these factors, you can select a presentation to suit the specific situation. We will cover a wide variety of topics including tackle selection, rigging, what bait to throw and why, understanding seasonal patterns and how they affect bass behavior, how to read the conditions to develop a pattern, how to read your electronics more effectively, and much much more. Ledges, points, bluff walls, and rockpiles in 25-35 feet of water are your best bet. Because of this, a well-presented bait can work well to catch them. Flukes and Senkos- a fluke makes sense to try and imitate a shad right? Pictured below is a healthy Lake Travis bass caught on an a-rig on a deep ledge in February. Early in the mornings bass relate to marinas heavily on Lake Travis. Well, largemouth bass are cold blooded and as the water cools their metabolism slow. If you look around some of the deeper ledges and points, there are a lot of fish suspended and you can catch a few of these using jigging spoons. This data release provides gradient self-potential (SP), conductivity, and temperature measurements made during an investigation of surface-water and groundwater exchange in Lake Travis near Austin, Texas, where the Colorado River is incised into two zones of the Cretaceous-age Trinity aquifer (the lower-zone, and several hydrostratigraphic units of the middle zone). Without going super in depth (if you want that level of info consider purchasing one of my Honey Hole Reports) I recommend having a variety of crankbaits in different diving depths as well as a swimbait tied on. During the summer understanding how a thermocline affects where the fish live is important. There are a couple key patterns that I recommend you try. For those of you new to Lake Travis, the lake is around 65 miles long. Stick to colors that imitate a baitfish, anything white, grey or silver will work well. So what does this mean for bass fishing and how to target them? These offshore fish tend to be lethargic and it can sometimes take a lot of work to get them fired up and chewing. I also am a big believer in not fishing spots and fishing a pattern instead. Get right over the schools of bass and drop your bait down close to your transducer so that you can see it go down the screen, stop it once you are at the same depth as the fish. The lake is 63.75 miles long, has over 271 miles of shoreline and its maximum width is 4.5 miles. Spring is in the air, the weather is finally warming up, and the water temps are slowly rising. A Heddon Zara Spook- A bone colored spook is one of my favorite topwater baits. These are typically the first areas bass move to in order to make their way to where theyll ultimately build a nest and spawn. Jun 30, 2009. The Colorado River and Highland Lakes - LCRA - Energy, Water, Community Bluff walls and creek channel bends where the shoreline is fairly steep can also be very productive. That is still a little ways off with as hot as its been. If you dont have a boat, or would like to learn more about Lake Travis consider booking a trip with me! If you intend to stay in the water for a while a thin shorty wetsuit will suffice. When fishing it I prefer a medium speed retrieve but I stop and start the bait a lot as well as very the retrieve by speeding up and slowing it down often keep the retrieve erratic and avoid just reeling it in over and over again at the same speed. Pair this up with a ounce lead head and fish it slowly just over the bottom. The water temperatures will remain warm for a while longer, but as the summer drags on, the bass internal clock tells them fall is approaching. I look for areas where bass can move to feed on bait that moves into these areas. Carolina rigs with a 4 leader have been good in the late afternoon. Lee Benton Fishing Guides Austin. Bass are ambush predators and want to be around cover. Lately the weather has been all over the place with cold fronts and stretches of warm weather. Clients always ask me my favorite time to target largemouth bass on Lake Travis. However, the swimbait, which is also a moving bait, can work during the day when the wind picks up. During the end of September and the beginning of October, depending on when we first start seeing cold fronts, the lake temps will start to drop. As the fall months near the fishing will continue to be stellar! If you position your boat too far off the bank you spend more time letting the bait sink, or worst case, just swinging back towards the boat not even on the bottom. Dont let some cooler weather stop you from getting out there. November is my favorite time of the year to fish. Water temps are currently in the low 60s with water clarity around 4-6 feet on the lower end of the lake. For the slightly deeper bite, instead of the texas rig, I may focus more on the drop shot and perhaps a standard-sized carolina rig. The fish have moved a little since the flooding several weeks ago but we are still coming across some really nice ones. These spots tend to be deep, so selecting a rig I can get down to those depths and effectively present the bait is most important. Deep docks with numerous cross members and a low platform are probably the best. Keep your trolling motor on low and put on a pair of polarized sunglasses to aid in seeing the beds on the bottom of the lake. A speedboat remains vertical and almost on dry land at Lake Mead. Fish will not bee line it back into the coves, they will move to the mouths of the coves and stage before actually building a nest. The first two baits are my search baits when I first pull up on a ledge or point after finding the fish with the electronics. Climate of Lake Travis If you purchase a report and dont think it was worth your hard earned money I will refund you no questions asked! Once water temps reach the low 60s you will find fish on beds. There are a few fish on beds already as well. Lake Travis Boat Club for long-term or short-term use during your stay on Lake Travis. Top Bassmaster Tournament Lures on Lake Travis (slide show), Its May and the fishing is really strong on Lake Travis. Watch for a tick in the line or it to stop falling prematurely; if you see anything odd lift your rod tip and feel for pressure if you feel anything weird dont forget hook sets are free. There are exceptions like when there is a warming trend and the fish will move up shallow to feed. For me a bone or shad colored topwater walking style bait such as a Heddon Spook is a prefered bait. In the south, February is the start of great things to come. The shorelines of Lake Travis hold all types of forage including threadfin shad, sunfish, bluegills, and cichlids that these bass will hunt for. Read on to learn more about the temperatures you should look for when going for a dip and some tips on acclimating your body to cold water swimming. Lake Travis weather forecast updated daily. Some of the best fishing of the year is almost upon us! Whereas if most of your bites come when you are actively moving the bait, you can pause less and fish a bit faster when in doubt fish slow though. Not all marinas are created equal, but certain ones are holding large schools of baitfish, which attracts predator fish such as largemouth bass and white bass. Depending on the water clarity, I would focus on the 15-20 ft depth range, near isolated patches of rock. April fool's Day produced the catch of the week. Target the same areas discussed above, just a little further off the bank. I prefer the crankbait and Alabama rig when there is a little bit of wind or cloud cover, I find those conditions help. This process all has to do with water temperature. Lake Travis Water Level. Im either at the mouth of the creek arm, fishing main lake points, or Im offshore looking at deep contours. Happy New Year everyone! This time last year the lake was almost 7 degrees warmer and as you may know this plays a huge role in the fishing. One other important thing to mention! A green pumpkin Zoom baby brush hog is an excellent choice right now. On those calm days I tend to slow down a bit, however a crankbait can still be very productive. Some days you can even find some good ones on top waters. Lake Travis has a ton of bluff walls, but not all of them are created equal. Here in Central Texas we are fortunate it never gets super cold, so the water temps rarely get any lower than the mid 50s. When I find fish on the graph, especially if they are suspended this is how I like to try and catch them first. List Your Business | Login. Each report contains 5+ EXACT spots on the map showing you where I am catching fish with my paid clients. I hope these tips help you catch more fish! 2. Turnback History, Lake Travis, and Weather - Austin Yacht Club During the late summer some fish will move up shallower and will orient around isolated structure. New for this season I am running a 2022 Phoenix 921 elite with a Mercury 300 on the back! During the fall there are several baits I always keep tied on, but to keep this short I will focus on three main baits. The deeper chunk rock banks have been key for this pattern. Water temps today were up to 55 degrees in the afternoon. If they are higher up off the bottom, the deep crank can work well to get the school fired up. A swimbait- I like to throw a 4 paddle tail swimbait rigged on a ounce lead head a lot. Summer conditions are still here and will be for at least the next month or two. Historically some of the biggest bags I have caught on Lake Travis have been in the fall, so dont be afraid to book in advance if you dont have a flexible schedule and want a certain date! You can catch some fish on topwaters using a walking bait like a spook throwing over trees in 5-12 foot of water and over and near rock piles or cliffs to get some good bites. Most people will be OK with just bathers / swimming costume at this temperature. Knowing how to determine when a thermocline is present is something I cover during my guided trips. The reason I mention this is because largemouth bass do not like to live below the thermocline. While not the species I normally guide for, I love catching them as theyre hard fighters and are great for clients who want to keep their catch. To know if you should be looking for bed fish or be targeting pre-spawn fish, keep any eye on the water temps. Summer fishing often requires a fair amount of graphing with the sonar before making a cast. When bass are spawning they are not hungry or fixated on feeding, rather they are territorial and will attack something that poses a threat to them. Stick to colors that resemble a threadfin shad, these tend to get bit the best. Bonus tip: When its windy, look for sharp mud lines, they make for great ambush points. Aug. 14, 2022 (KLAS) June 2022. Some of those days with less than ideal forecasts can be some of the best fishing! Medium Diving Crankbait Jun 30, 2009. Lake Travis Vacation Rentals We stared seeing action pretty quick with most of our bites coming in the 20-30 foot depth. It is more narrow, has smaller coves and creek arms, and the water is more stained. I recommend starting at the mouths of coves and working your way inside. With the water being so clear, stick to natural colors like green pumpkin and watermelon. One fishing fast moving reaction baits and another fishing slow moving finesse baits. During guided trips a lot of clients ask me how I find structure, how I know where the good ledges are, and where the productive rock piles are at. Due to the changes in bottom composition the lower end of Lake Travis can get very clear. Look for bluffs with docks as the bass will oftentimes hangout under or around them for the shade.
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