Rain clouds won't cast long-term shadow on fishing

Most Texans learn, early on, to never cuss rain. This just makes good sense in a state prone to great suffering when too often and for too long the sky turns too stingy in yielding the precious precipitation that fuels all life. Think: the Drought of 2011 … that really began in 2008, peaked three years later and still lingers in much of Texas in 2015

But while most Texans know better than to openly complain about falling rain, more than a few of the state's 2 million or so freshwater anglers have mumbled rain-related expletives under their breath during this significantly wet week.

Those in the eastern third of the state are not thrilled with the swamping rains that have poured muddy, cold runoff into waterways, sending overloaded rivers out of their banks, pushing water level in some reservoirs as much as 4 feet over the "full" mark and generally slamming the brakes on what was shaping up to be a great run of mid-March fishing.

Anglers in the rest of Texas are kicking dusty rocks, looking at lakes and rivers that continue shriveling and wondering if there's some invisible wall preventing those moisture-laded clouds from filling their watersheds. Lakes such as Travis (54 feet below normal pool level), Choke Canyon (28 feet low), Amistad (29 feet low) and Falcon (25 feet low) saw little or no runoff from the most recent rounds of rains.

"It's been a pretty stark contrast between East Texas and the rest of the state," Craig Bonds, director of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's inland fisheries division, said of recent rains and the effects on waterways, reservoirs and the fisheries. "There's been a lot of rain, but all of it's been falling east of where it's really needed."

Suppressing action

East Texas anglers almost certainly would have been willing to share some of the rain that fell over the region earlier this week with the rest of the state. As much as 4-6 inches fell across a wide swath of eastern Texas early this week, sending billions of gallons of runoff into river systems from the Sabine in the east to the Brazos on the west.

That muddy, chilled, debris-littered water threw a wet blanket on what, just a week ago, was looking like the start of a rush of excellent fishing.

"The fishing got incredible last week," said Jane Gallenbach, whose River Ridge Guide Service focuses on the spectacular schools of white bass that pile into the Sabine River upstream from Toledo Bend Reservoir on their annual late winter/early spring spawning run. "For three days, we were catching limits (25 fish per anglers) by 8:30 in the morning. It was as good as it gets."

Then the rain hit. The Sabine's water level rose more than 12 feet over the past four days, jumping its banks and spreading into the floodplain. The surge took the fast fishing with it.

"It went from great to nothing. I guess it came up so fast and so high it just scattered them," Gallenbach said. "It'll take a few days for the fish to figure out what happened and get back into some pattern."

Flooding or near-flooding conditions on the Trinity, Neches and San Jacinto rivers triggered similar shutdowns of the white bass run.

The same thing happened to fishing for largemouth bass. This past Saturday, a sunny, mild day just ahead of the deluges that began Sunday was the kind of day that shows why Texas bass anglers look forward to March. Anglers fishing for heavyweight female largemouths carrying the extra weight of developing egg sacks ahead of the annual spring spawn enjoyed outstanding success.

Saturday, three largemouth bass weighing more than 13 pounds were landed and donated to the state's ShareLunker program, the TPWD-run project that solicits anglers to donate live, 13-pound or heavier bass for use in hatchery production and research. Two of those bass - a massive 14.32-pounder that hit a spinnerbait and a 13.05-pounder that ate a crankbait - were caught from Sam Rayburn Reservoir. The other ShareLunker entry was a true monster, a 15.18-pounder caught from Lake Ray Roberts on a jerkbait fished in about 14 feet of water. The 15.18-pounder is pending certification as the heaviest largemouth taken from the 30,000-acre reservoir on the Trinity River watershed near Denton.

Several other huge largemouths, including a 12.94-pounder from Lake Athens, were landed ahead of the rain. Since then, largemouth bass fishing has been horrid as lakes swelled with muddy, cold water. Several lakes in East Texas have seen their water levels climb over the full mark this week, many for the first time in years. Caddo Lake and Lake O' the Pines are more than 3 feet over normal-pool level, with water flooding lake-side campgrounds. Lake Fork's level jumped 2 feet over the past week, and lakes Livingston, Conroe, Houston, Houston County, Somerville, Palestine and several others in East Texas swelled to as much as a foot above full-pool level.

Future benefits

This surge of water is a short-term negative for anglers. But it will have long-term benefits for fish and fishing.

"I look at this as a totally positive thing," Bonds said of the high-water conditions in rivers and reservoirs. Heavy runoff carries recharges of nutrients to reservoirs, fueling the lakes' forage fishery. It also floods the shallows, inundating brush and vegetation that serves as cover for young largemouths, crappie and sunfish that will result from the pending spawning season.

That increase in shallow-water cover will improve survival of those young fish, boding well for the future.

Because most freshwater fish such as largemouth bass have a spawning season that lasts 60-90 days, short disruptions, especially early in the season, aren't likely to have a negative effect on the overall spawn, Bonds said.

The swelled rivers also are a great thing for fish that use those waterways.

"Increased flows serve as a spawning cue for some species of fish," Bonds said. White bass are one of them.

"I suspect this will be very good for the white bass spawn," he said.

Also, when heavy runoff sends rivers out of their banks, it reconnects sloughs and other tributaries to the river, recharging them with fish and nutrients. And some species of fish such as alligator gar can successfully spawn only in flooded riverine habitat.

"These pulses of high water are natural events, and they benefit fish," Bonds said.

Strong finish

Freshwater anglers could start seeing some of those benefits as soon as the weather moderates.

"The white bass haven't spawned yet. We were catching big females full of eggs before this rain," Gallenbach said. "It's been colder than normal this year - our water temperature is still 47 or 48 degrees. So as soon as things settle down, the fishing should be great. And the run could last into April."

And a strong finish to this year's white bass spawning run, triggered by the increased flow in their natal streams, could prove a silver-scaled lining to the dark clouds that are raining on anglers' options this week.