Posted: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 09:00 PM - 9,008 Readers
By: Mike Leggett
Central Texas anglers know there are big bass to be caught in Texas.
And they know — or at least they think they know — where to find them.
They don't blink an eye at driving five hours to Lake Fork or four hours to O.H. Ivie Lake or even six hours to reach Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
And why not? Each of these lakes has produced more than 20 trophy bass in the last 25 years.
Thing is, the smartest anglers know that one of the best trophy bass lakes in Texas is right here in Austin.
In fact, you could argue it is the third most potent trophy bass lake in the state.
Not that it comes up often in discussions about the best lakes. The conventional wisdom says Ivie, Rayburn, Fork and Alan Henry Reservoir.
But those who fish Lake Austin know better. When you compare the number of lunker size (13 pounds or more) trophy bass to the size of the lake, Austin ranks third in the state. Just about six lunkers per thousand acres.
T.J. Nissen of Austin knows. Recently he hooked and landed a monster bass, a lake record that weighed 16.02 pounds. Nissen caught the fish on a crank bait, fishing a very well known boat dock across from the Emma Long Metropolitan Park on Lake Austin.
"We've always tried to catch those big bass when the lake is drawn down (as it is right now) and my son and I normally fish together," Nissen said. "I was fishing with a friend, and we were just about to quit, when we decided to try that one last spot."
Nissen was using 12-pound test line, when he cast well up under the dock structure and hooked the big bass in about 4 feet of water.
After a short struggle around the pilings of the dock, the giant fish swam out into open water. That helped Nissen land the fish, but it also started a new set of problems.
"We didn't have an ice chest or a net and didn't have a live well in the boat," he said. Holding the big fish in the water to keep her safe, Nissen began calling friends and his wife, asking for a large ice chest and an aerator to hold the fish until somebody from Texas Parks and Wildlife could come and take the fish to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. He also asked for a pizza for himself while he waited.
The big fish in now in Athens and is currently the largest fish entered in the department's ShareLunker program for this season. These large fish are donated to the state for spawning and research.
The quality fishing that follows each draw down on Lake Austin is no giant secret. The Lower Colorado River Authority drops the water level basically every other year to allow property owners to clean out excess aquatic vegetation from around their boat docks and breakfronts. The lake's surface area is reduced to a fraction of what it normally is and the fish become concentrated and therefore a bit easier to find.
But finding the fish and getting to them can be two different things. Since most docks and the normal shoreline are high and dry, most anglers resort to carrying small jon boats or kayaks down to the water. When they do that, they often leave live wells and ice chests behind.
OK, so how do the lakes stack up? The state's been keeping track of the big ones for a quarter century now. If you're looking for the best lake, there is no argument. No debate. Doesn't make any difference what measure you use.
Lake Fork, at just over 27,000 acres, has turned out 246 lunker-size trophy bass in 25 years. That's about 10 times more lunkers than any other lake.
And the rest? Well, more than 60 public lakes and nearly two dozen private lakes have yielded monster bass.
If you look at the lunker yield per thousand acres of water surface, the next two public lakes are Alan Henry (25) and Lake Austin (10), and these are two of the smallest lakes in this discussion.
After that, in order: Gibbons Creek Reservoir (5), Ivie (20), Lake Conroe (16), Choke Canyon Reservoir (13), Rayburn (23), International Amistad Reservoir (12), International Falcon Reservoir (12) and Toledo Bend (4).
All of which puts T.J. Nissen and Lake Austin in pretty elite company.
