Testing New Water

Testing New Water Image

• Shaped like a football, Conn’s bass measured only 20 1/4 inches long. Courtesy Photo/Jason Conn
• Fishing guide Jason Conn displays the 9.04 pounder he caught at Bois d’Arc Lake on April 24. TPWD fisheries scientists are doing genetics testing on scale samples from the fish to determine if it is one of the 2,000-plus advanced growth Toyota ShareLunker fingerlings released into a 10-acre brood pond in 2019. Courtesy Photo/ Jason Conn
• Map of Bois d'Arc Lake Bois d'Arc Lake Graphic
• Testing New Water
• The upper end of the new lake is a virtual jungle. Much of it is currently inaccessible by boat because it is too thick to penetrate. Anglers should be on the watch for wasp nests in heavily timbered areas. Courtesy Photo/North Texas Municipal Water District

Matt Williams Sat, 05/25/2024 - 06:11 Subhead Bois d’Arc opens quietly, anglers reeling in whoppers from vibrant new fishery Body

Texas’ newest recreational fishing lake — Bois d’Arc Lake — quietly opened for business on the morning of April 17.

Not surprisingly, some anglers who learned about the party in advance enjoyed some pretty good fishing. The thousands who didn’t know about the opening missed out on the rare opportunity to be among the first to visit a brand new lake on opening day.

New lakes are special, and they don’t come along very often. The water is extremely fertile and the fish are vastly uneducated. That’s the way it usually goes, anyway.

Most Texas anglers had no idea the gates to the three boat ramps around Bois d’Arc were about to swing open when they did. The governing authority over the reservoir — the North Texas Municipal Water District — planned it that way.

The NTMWD announced the opening in a press release that went out the same morning the gates were unlocked. The release was placed on the Bois d’Arc website (boisdarclake. org) and distributed to local media.

Like many, I first learned about the lake’s opening Wednesday morning when photos of anglers fishing started popping up on social media. This may be the first Texas public reservoir to open at a time that was not disclosed to the public until the last minute.

Bois d’Arc Lake operation manager Jennifer Montgomery says the NTMWD chose to keep the day and time of the opening quiet due to safety concerns, and to reduce the potential of overcrowding at boat ramps where parking is limited.

She added the agency operated closely with the Fannin County Sheriff 's office and TPWD game wardens when coordinating the timing of the opening.

“Everybody has been waiting on the lake to open,” Montgomery said. “For public safety reasons, we didn’t do a pre-opening announcement. We did a soft opening so people would trickle in rather than having hundreds of trucks and trailers lined up and down the roads around here.”

Located northeast of Bonham, the 16,600-acre Fannin County reservoir was built primarily for water supply. It’s the first major impoundment built in Texas since 19,000-acre Lake O.H Ivie opened to the public in 1990.

It’s worth noting the lake currently has only three public boat launching sites with approximately 50 parking places at each one — enough for 150 trucks/ trailers.

That’s a tiny number for a lake roughly 1,000-acres smaller in size than Lake O’ the Pines.

DRAW: MAYBE A BETTER WAY

The concerns officials had about the possibility of overcrowding by fishermen on the new lake about 70 miles from the D/FW Metroplex were certainly justified. Give them vibrant, new water and fishermen are sure to come.

But there may have been a better way around it than keeping the lake’s opening a secret from the majority of Texas’ 1.8 million freshwater anglers.

It was suggested to the NTMWD multiple times over the last two years to conduct a pre-opening, lottery-style drawing to limit the number of the boats on the lake to 150 per day for a specified time, say two weeks to a month.

Advertised in advance, the process would have offered everyone a fair shot to win an opening day pass, while curbing the potential of overcrowding for the duration of the draw period. A draw also would have prevented anglers from driving long distances to test the new water, only to find full parking lots on arrival.

The draw method worked beautifully when Lake Naconiche in Nacogdoches County eastern Texas opened for fishing in September 2012. That lake has only one ramp with 40 parking places.

Anglers registered for an online draw and the chosen ones were given one day to fish. The lake fully opened to the public after two weeks.

It took some leg-work on the county's part to do the computer draw, but it came off without a hitch. The process kept the boat traffic at bay for the first two weeks. And it was done fairly.

A LITTLE HISTORY

The NTMWD broke ground on construction of the reservoir in May 2018. The dam began capturing inflow from Bois d’Arc Creek and other tributaries in April 2021. Drought conditions resulted in the lake filling up slower than originally hoped.

Inland fisheries crews with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department got ahead of the game by gaining access to several existing stock tanks within the lakebed to utilize as rearing ponds for young fish while construction was underway.

Existing fish populations were removed from the ponds before restocking with bluegills, fathead minnows, threadfin shad and more than 2,000 advanced growth (6-8 inches ) Toyota ShareLunker offspring in 2019.

The state has since added nearly 400,000 more Floridas to the mix, along with crappie and blue and channel catfish. Crews also built gravel spawning areas and dropped or built about 50 man-made fishing structures at strategic locations at the eastern half of the lake.

TPWD fisheries biologist Dan Bennett of Pottsboro says dozer operators built some of the timber piles as tall as 15 feet and as long as 80 feet. Descriptions and GPS coordinates of all of the structures are available at tpwd.texas.gov/ fishboat/fish/recreational/ lakes/fish_attractors.phtml.

The prep work helped fish populations become well established before the lake’s opening. Plus, it created a wealth of open water habitat to complement the hundreds of acres of brush and timber left standing on both sides of the main boat lane west of the FM 897 bridge crossing. It’s a jungle up there.

Largemouth bass are the major draw among Bois d’Arc anglers. The fish are protected by a five fish, 16 inch maximum length limit. Only those bass 16 inches long or less may be retained. Bass longer than 16 inches must be released immediately, unless upwards of 13 pounds and donated to the Toyota Sharelunker program.

All other species are governed by statewide regulations.

HOW IT’S FISHING

The recipe managers cooked up apparently worked well. The lake has been fishing pretty darned good for some, with some outstanding quality reported. Others aren’t catching much.

Photos of happy anglers holding plump fish — mostly bass — have surfaced on plenty of social media pages since opening day. Fishing guide Jason Conn of Anna has probably posted as many Facebook images as anyone.

Conn guides on Fork, O.H. Ivie and a host of other lakes. In 2023, he reeled in a 17.03 pounder at ‘Ivie that ranks as the No. 8 heaviest Texas bass of alltime. Conn is calling Bois d’Arc his home lake now.

Conn has been on the water just about every day. He says his boat has been catching and releasing about 15 to 40 bass per day with some tanks in the mix. His biggest bass as of April 24 was a 9.05 pounder that is sure to be among the heaviest reported so far. The football-shaped fish measured only 20 1/4 inches.

Bennett says scale samples from the fat fish will be genetically tested to see if it traces back to the advanced growth ShareLunker offspring stocked in 2019. He’s betting it does.

“It was caught pretty close to the brood pond where we stocked those fish,” Bennett said. “If it is one of those fish, genetics testing should tell us who its mom and dad were,” Bennett said. “That would be pretty cool.”

The guide said he’s been fishing through plenty of dead water to locate several sweet spots that load up with bass periodically throughout the day. It’s common to catch multiple fish in specific spots.

“I’ve just been rotating those spots,” he said.

Bass Pro Tour angler Dave Lefebre of Erie, PA., fished the lake on April 24, as well. Lefebre agreed that the fish are very spot oriented.

“It was tough until we found them — they aren’t everywhere,” he said. “We went from zero to 18 fish in about an hour and we left them biting.

Lefebre reported that most of the takers were in the 2-3 pound range, but he did have a seven pounder. His go-to bait was a Yamamoto Senko that worked in about 3-5 feet of water.

“Overall, it's a very cool looking pond,” Lefebre said. “I’ve never seen so many shadows in my life. They were spawning in the trees, trillions of them. There are many acres of water that are totally inaccessible where the fish can hide. The facilities are excellent, but it’s very crowded.”

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.