It is a real shame that the local government has allowed Lake Corpus Christi, or Mathis as many call it; get so low!  For the good part of a year there have been no launchable ramps and the lake has dwindled to about 30% capacity.  Sure, drought hasnt helped, but the real reason is that they are constantly pooring water out to "freshen" the bay for the shrimp!  The sad thing is that this lake had quitely become a top notch fishery, in my opinion rivaling almost any lake in the state!

I started fishing Mathis hard 3 yrs ago for 2 reasons.  One, it is only 15 minutes from my home.  And two, because I hate dealing with the increasing crowds at choke canyon.  However, it soon became one of my favorite lakes for only one reason, IT HAD GREAT FISHING!

In an avg day at Mathis, an experienced angler could easily catch 50 bass or more.  Not only did it have numbers, but it had some real toads!  Fish of over 5 lbs were very common, especially during times of year that other lakes were off!  This lake also had many fish in the double digit category!  The lake record is about 14 lbs, and I have personally caught many fish over 8 lbs out there!  You can see a Pic of one big one next to my signature!

The cool thing about the whole deal is that the lake recieved almos no bass fishing pressure.  There are always a couple crappie, catfish, and white bass guys; but hardly a soul bass fishes out there.  All the bass guys pass it up for Choke Canyon or Falcon, which was fine by me!  It is very fun only having to contend with 2 or 3 other guys on a 20 k acre lake!

Soon, I began to Choose Mathis over Choke because of the fishing, not accessibility, and thats the honest truth.  Especially during the hot summer months when choke gets kinda tuff!  Thats when Mathis seemed to be at its best for me!

If you think about it, Mathis has everything that it takes to be a great big bass lake:  warm weather, lots of cover, big, plenty of food, and everything else that its Falcon and Choke counterparts had.  Its not too deep, only about 30-40 feet max, but that didnt seem to hurt things too bad!

Now when I say it has lots of food forage, I mean "Crawfish!"  You will never see a lake with more crawfish than this lake.  They are everywhere, every bass you catch has antennas sticking out their throats!  Because of our warm climates, the bass at Mathis are able to feed on them all year long, which results in lots of shallow water fishing around rock!  Also, all of your baits need to resemble crawfish in some shape form or fashion!

However, I dont know what has become of the lake cause nobody has been able to launch for the past yr.  I hope that the fish are surviving somewhere and that it will fill up soon.  I dont understand why they continue to let water out even with all the rain we have had recently!  I heard the city is trying to drain it down to do d**n repairs.  It really stinks.  I miss my little personal honey hole and hope that the Concan area floods soon so that the Frio river can fill her back up!  There should be lots of great plant growth and that would make lots of new great habitat!

I heard that there are a few ramps open now but I have not checked it out.  Maybe I will this week!

I forgot about that lake but everything you said as far as quality fish is true..too bad. I'm sure it will fill one day hopefully.

  T

Actually, I got a stirred up yesterday after I posted and called the park station!  Got great news!  I was informed that the recent rains have filled the lake up a bunch.  Though I cant see how, they said the lake was only 5 feet low.  That would be freakin awesome if the info is accurrate!  Regardless, they said that there are open boat ramps and that you can get on the water!

Finally, I pumped beyond belief!  I am going to go out sometime in the next couple days and I will let yall know what the deal is!  Later!

Keep us posted

    T

I am planning on going in a few hours, will post when I return!

Well, I took a quick little trip to Mathis yesterday!  Though I did not get a whole lot of bites, I feel very optimistic that the fishing is going to get pretty good there for the near future!

While the lake was low a lot of shrub brush quickly grew up in places where water used to be.  Now, these areas have filled back up leaveing hundreds of acres of flooded brush!  Its really cool to look at, and I know its going to help out!

The lake is definately up, and there is new cover, but the fishing was slow yesterday.  I only had two bites in 4 hrs, and only landed one fish!  However, my electronics were acting screwy and this hurt me a little bit.  My hummingbird would not read an accurate depth, and I use depth readings in my fishing big time.  Without this working, I just had to fish areas that I kinda already knew, but it was still hard because I dont quite know what the new water depth is at these spots!

Anyways, I fished this rockpile, a conrete wall, and a rocky bluff that have always produced for me in the past!  Just didnt have much luck!  I used: redeye shad (red), fat-Free Crankbait (chart.), senko (wat. pep.), football Jig (finesse/craw),  and TX rigged Paca Crawl (craw color)!  Both bites came off of the senko, wacky rigged!

However, things looked very promising and I will return soon!