January and February are the best time of year for fishing at the Stout Ranch. First, the cold water temps kill off a lot of the coontail so you can fish any type of lure you want. Next, the water in the lake becomes crystal clear making it easier for bass to zero in a lure. Last, but not least, the bass are the fattest they will get all year as the spawning season is just a few weeks away.
Such was the case this week when my fishing buddy for over 50 years, Bruce Slaven, made the annual trek to Moody Lake for two and a half days of bass spanking. Monday afternoon air temps temps were in the 70’s and water temp was 53. As soon as we started catching fish it was obvious that the fish were in the best condition I have ever seen. Every bass we caught had a huge gut and weighed as much as a pound over what the weight chart would predict. I suspect that the fish kill I had in October 2021 thinned out the population so there is an abundance of food for the surviving fish. We caught a good number of 4-5lb class fish and ended the first afternoon with a count of 82 on the clicker. Not as many as were catching prior to the fish kill, but still respectable.
On Tuesday morning while I was preparing breakfast, Bruce went out on the floating dock and made a few casts with one of his mega sized bass baits. Suddenly my phone rings with Bruce telling me to bring the scales right away. Turns out he had just landed the second largest bass of his life and the second 10lb+ bass to be caught in my lake… 10.04 Lbs. Not a bad way to start the day.
Tuesday it rained off and on all day and the bite slowed down, however Bruce did manage another trophy fish of 7.01 Lbs on a regular size jerk bait. The final tally for the day was 55 on the clicker.
Wednesday morning the rain continued and the wind began blowing from the north. Fishing was quite slow all morning and early afternoon until about 3pm when the clouds began to thin out a little. We started catching 4-5 Lb fish in the middle of the lake using Texas rigged worms. It was getting colder and by 4:30 we were starting to discuss whether to call it a day when Bruce tied on the mega bass Ashari swim bait on for one last attempt at a big fish. It worked… his next fish was 8.30 Lbs. That warmed both of us up and we decided to keep at it a little bit longer.
Glad we did because he caught one more nice fish… this one weighed 9.90 Lbs. Our fish count for the day ended at 34 but neither of us complained.
The final tally for the trip was 171 bass over 2 ½ days of fishing. Only about half as many as we usually get, but Bruce had caught 4 trophy fish including the second and fourth largest fish of his 70+ year bass fishing career. I had been worried that we lost all of the jumbo bass in the lake in 2021 during the fish kill, but I guess I was wrong.
One other interesting observation was noted in the fish we were catching. Several had the tails of a recent meal protruding from their guts. They were not eating bluegills, rather they had feeding on large shad, around 6 inches long. No wonder the jumbo swim baits were so effective. Once again I will be buying a selection of very large lures for our next fish spanking.