It’s only fitting that I’m calling a lake near Austin ‘weird’, but that’s the best way to describe Lake Travis. In early January my buddy and I decided to take a trip to the Texas Hill Country and fish Lake Travis. We live in the Houston area, our home lakes are Conroe, Fayette, and Sam Rayburn. However, since it was winter time we weren’t getting good numbers at those lake, and we were tired of the grind. So we decided to go to more of a highland lake setting, which is what Travis is. Now, what makes Travis weird? We fished 8 hours for one day, and we put about 50 Bass in the boat. Mostly Largemouth, but we also caught some Guadalupes and Spots. Out of the around 50 Bass we caught only one looked to be over 2 pounds. However, that one Bass that was over 2 pound, weighed somewhere between 8 and 9 pounds. We thought for sure we hooked into a Striper or a Catfish, because we were already about 30 fish in at the time and they were all dinks, so we were stunned to see it be a largemouth. The lake record is over 14 pounds, so we knew the lake has big ones. But, the way things were going we didn’t think we were going to catch any fish near that size. Another thing that makes Lake Travis weird is that it’s the only lake I know of in the country that has 4 species of Black Bass. Largemouth, Spotted, Guadalupe, and Smallmouth. I’ve never caught a Smallmouth at Travis, but I know they’re in there. And one more thing to prove that Lake Travis is the weirdest Lake in the country, Bassmaster had an Elite Series tournament there in 2018, and the big Bass of the tournament weighed about 10.5 pounds by Cliff Pace. So, knowing that, you would think the winning weight would be 90+ pounds. No, Drew Benton won that tournament by only weighing in 67-15 over the 4 days. I don’t know a weirder Lake in the country.

I've never fished it, but I've fished a lot of "quirky" lakes. Table Rock, Bull Shoals, and Beaver Lake all come to mind. Table Rock for sure had 4 species of black bass as well; largemouth, smallmouth, spots, and meanmouth. If you figure them out on those lakes, you can catch obscene numbers of bass, but if you don't, it can seem like there isn't a bass living in them anywhere. Figured them out good yesterday? Doesn't matter today because they're not there and not biting that anymore. They're huge lakes too that you can fish anything from a couple feet of muddy water flipping targets, to fish suspending over deep trees 50' down in 100' of water.

 

 

12 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I've never fished it, but I've fished a lot of "quirky" lakes. Table Rock, Bull Shoals, and Beaver Lake all come to mind. Table Rock for sure had 4 species of black bass as well; largemouth, smallmouth, spots, and meanmouth. If you figure them out on those lakes, you can catch obscene numbers of bass, but if you don't, it can seem like there isn't a bass living in them anywhere. Figured them out good yesterday? Doesn't matter today because they're not there and not biting that anymore. They're huge lakes too that you can fish anything from a couple feet of muddy water flipping targets, to fish suspending over deep trees 50' down in 100' of water.

 

 

If meanmouth counts, then all waters in TN have 4 species of black bass (well all waters larger than a cow pond). I watched somebody fishing a tournament on lake Travis that was on a school of thousands of 1 lb bass, it was pretty wild. He kept showing the graph and it was almost blacked out with them 

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

If meanmouth counts, then all waters in TN have 4 species of black bass (well all waters larger than a cow pond). I watched somebody fishing a tournament on lake Travis that was on a school of thousands of 1 lb bass, it was pretty wild. He kept showing the graph and it was almost blacked out with them 

Missouri recognizes them as a different fish and has a state record for them. 

 

There's some awesome screenshots from Table Rock out there of the giant schools of bass terrorizing shad in deep, open water.

Out of curiosity when you guys say meanmouth do you mean smallmouth/largemouth hybrid or smallmouth/spot? I’ve heard both called meanmouths 

2 hours ago, Ogandrews said:

Out of curiosity when you guys say meanmouth do you mean smallmouth/largemouth hybrid or smallmouth/spot? I’ve heard both called meanmouths 

Smallmouth/spot is the most common.

I was a official at Bass Fest back in 2018 on Lake Travis, going out with David Fritts the first day and Gerald Swindle the second.  Both anglers caught well over 30 bass each when I was on their boat, Fritts best 5 weighed 8-0 while Swindles went 7-1.  I have never seen so many 13.75" bass in my life.

 

Swindle even had 3 doubles on jerkbaits, including a multi-species double (a largemouth and a guadalupe, or guacamole as some of the anglers called them).  They were all between 13 - 14 inches no matter what he did or what he threw.

Down size 4 & 6 lb test most bass in most lakes are under 2 pounds, especially spots and gauds small shad color lures 1/16 oz 1 inch and 2 inch single tail white grub catches lots of em on a steady retrieve close to the rocks in the creeks