It was that tip that led me to tie on the Bigfoot Scum Frog described in the lead to this story. Even though we fished on a day dominated by bright sunshine and 85-degree heat, I never threw anything else with the exception of a worm that I kept at the ready to offer fish that missed the frog.

And throughout the day, bass kept blowing up on that frog. So much so that Garavelli made another topwater bait, a Pop-R, part of his arsenal.

“It is a mostly shallow lake,” Garavelli said in explaining the topwater bite. “When we renovated it, we dug a lot of channels to create some more deep water, but that’s all there is. Even in the open water at the dam, it’s difficult to find any water over 10, and most of it is under 10.

“The lake is about 135 acres, and 80 percent of it is probably 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep or shallower. Before we renovated it, we had vegetation problems, and even though we thought we had eliminated a lot of it, the same kind of grasses and weeds had already reappeared before we opened. Add to that the natural growth of willows that shot up during the drawdown and there’s a lot of shallow cover for bass near the channels we dug.”

When the lake reopened in October, most of the bass were relating to the cover adjacent to any of the cut channels, which range from 10 feet deep to 5 feet along the banks. A lot of the deepest water in some areas is adjacent to the banks.

Bull said electro-shocking surveys continually found the biggest supply of bass relating to the riprap and willows along the dam levee. Unfortunately, they were the toughest to catch on our visit -- easy to coax into biting, difficult to remove from the timber.

This is a lake to visit for numbers of fish this year, not size. Of the 40 fish we boated on our October visit, we had 10 in the 4-pound range, with the majority running 2 to 3 pounds. In other words, we had four hours of fun.

ROSS BARNETT RESERVOIR
For a lake that gets so much pressure, Barnett Reservoir seems to be maturing into a great fishing lake. A crappie hotspot for years, it now is getting to be known more for its bass opportunities.

“I’ve been fishing this lake ever since it opened, and right now I’d say it’s the best it’s been since those first few years after it was impounded,” said Vernon Thomas of Brandon. “Every lake goes through those hot years, followed by down years, and eventually it settles down and becomes what it is supposed to be. For a long time, through the ‘80s and most of the ‘90s, I worried that Barnett was not supposed to be a great bass lake. I was wrong.

“I know it’s a cycle-type thing, but our up cycle has been going on for the last 10 years and just keeps getting better.”