Lake Texoma Fishing Report :: Chasing The Birds
Posted on November 13, 2020 
It has been a busy year on Texoma so far, and I'm grateful that the fishing guide industry has not suffered due to the current affairs, fishing is after all, a most essential activity. All the guides have been booked up through most of the year so far. All through spring and early summer the fishing was excellent followed by a span of slower fishing through the hottest part of the summer which is to be expected. With the cooler weather however the bite has picked back up again. The topwater bite was excellent this year which runs from late September through the end of October. Catching our limit of big fish on topater pencil poppers was the norm nearly every trip. Recently the birds have arrived and we have been chasing them around the lake using slabs, sassys, and live bait with great success. November is one of the best months for consistently catching lots of fish and this year seems to be no exception to that.
Becoming apart of a feeding frenzy of birds and fish adds a new level of enjoyment to fishing that everyone should experience. The fish are in big schools and moving fast chasing shoals of shad which flee to the surface to escape the stripers only to be eaten by a seagull. When the fish are moving like this, they will often only be under the boat for only a short while so using slabs can be most effective as you can drop them quickly on the fish when the boat stops, allowing for the lure to be in the strike zone longer. In shallow water (20-30 ft.) we have been jigging the slabs off the bottom, jerking them up and then let them fall back making sure they hit the bottom again after every jig. If they are feeding in deeper water (50-80ft), the fish will be suspended down around 30-40 ft. so we drop the slab to the bottom and quickly reel it up again to move it through the school of fish occasionally jigging half way up. The fish are likely to hit the lure while it is falling so you have to be ready to engage the reel to set the hook. We are always on the move chasing the birds and its an exciting way to catch fish. Most often when we pull up to up to feeding birds and drop our slabs, everyone will hook up a fish, by the time I get all of them in the boat its time to pull up and drop them again.
Chasing birds usually works well through the end of December then the fish will move onto their winter sturcture where we will target them using sassy shad swim baits which is how we will catch some of our biggest fish of the year. I love going after the big ones and structure fishing using sassy shad from January through March is one of the best opportunities to hook into a monster striper. So if you are hunting for a trophy, come see me for a winter trip and we will do our best to put one in the boat. You can book your trip online at www.stripersinc.com or give me a call at (903)815-1609 and I'll get you setup. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Your Lake Texoma Fishing Guide,
Brian Prichard
Stripers Inc.
www.stripersinc.com
(903)815-1609
