Rayburn and The Corp

Posted by ken on September 12, 2016

If you haven't been on Rayburn recently the fishing has been pretty good, and in some places great. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I found one of those great places the Sunday before Labor Day. In the span of about 3 hours I probably boated 40 fish up to about four and a quarter. Although I knew I couldn't catch the 31 lbs that Clayton and Albert caught a few weeks earlier, I also knew something in the high teens with a chance to get lucky with a big fish or two and get into the 20's was worth an entry fee. My fish were north and if you haven't been up there recently the awfully invasive giant salvinia (its scientific name is better, Molesta Salvinia) has covered up vast shoreline and bays all the way down below the 147 bridge. I happened to be on the phone with Albert on Thursday and he knew the area I was fishing, and he gave what can only be described as an evil chuckle. When I pressed him as to the chuckle he warned me to be careful depending on that area as he had witnessed the Corp spraying the area trying to kill the salvinia on Wednesday. Unfortunately I was familiar with what happens when defoliant gets sprayed on the area you are fishing as it happened to me in a Bass Champs championship on the Red River several years ago. Even more unfortunately I was only able to find one other small group of fish on Friday, so with one 3 lber in the bag after a pass on the fish I found Friday I went up there and spent almost 3 hours trying to coax those fish into biting. What was really strange is there were still numbers of small fish in the area, but alas only one over the 3 lb mark landed on my carpet. Add a 4 1/2 on a frog off the other fish late in the day and that's how one gets their butts kicked at Rayburn in September. Can anyone say skake bitten in 2016?