Bob Faulkner has been fishing Lake Texoma his whole life, and he'll tell you stories of camping and fishing here with his dad MANY years ago...
For the last 27 years he's been a striper guide on Lake Texoma, so he has experienced both the 1990 flood and the 2007 flood as a fishing professional.
I decided to get his advice for us now, since the floodwaters provide some advantages and some distinct disadvantages to anyone desiring to get out on the deep water and catch some fish now. Especially in the next few days forecast to be sunny!
The following advice is straight from Bob Faulkner - read it and DO IT!
"It's not safe to be out there in a boat right now without an experienced, knowledgeable guide who KNOWS THE LAKE and especially the structures underneath the water. I know where to go and where not to go. That's important.
"And I don't go full blast now in this high water. I go slow. You don't know what you're going to run into, literally. Yesterday I saw one of the channel buoys out in the middle of the lake. Good guides will not run wide open now unless it's an emergency.
"I've had 16 trips cancel and reschedule in the last few weeks, so some of my customers will still be fishing later in the year, probably in the fall. I always tell them I want them to have the best experience, and since they come here from all over the country I tell them I'll let them know the day before their trip if I think it's going to work for them.
"I have to buy shad now, since it's too hard to catch enough, and costs me up to $100 a day for bait. So I have to be sure the trip will be successful before taking people out there to have a great time.
"Striped bass are sight feeders and finding clear water is getting very hard for them, so fish won't be eating as much, making them harder to catch. But when we catch fish, and we DO catch fish every trip, they are good, big fish.
"The goal is safety and having a good time. Even if we don't catch our limits as usual we catch BIG FISH and people really like catching big fish.
"Of course catfishing right now is phenomenal because they are muddy water feeders, and right now they are up in the grass after worms and bugs, even in people's yards!
"The other day one of my long-time customers brought his grandson who caught four 27" stripers himself. Of course we sat in the slip for 3 hours waiting for the rain to quit before we could get out there and catch them.
"One of the things that concerns me the most is floating debris coming in from upstream. Now that it cannot float freely beneath the Willis Bridge and the Roosevelt Bridge it's likely to start piling up against the bridges, and that's really a safety hazard.
"Naturally, I always have my phone and my radar on all day to stay safe. But it really aggravates me that I can't take all my customers out on their trips right now because they really enjoy their trips, and I really enjoy that!"
