May Bass Fishing in Oklahoma
May bass fishing in Oklahoma…. Such a great time to bass fish!
I was a senior in high school who was about to graduate. My buddies and I spent every possible night chasing bass in any of the local neighborhoods we could find a way into. We had those ponds dialed in from March until football started up again in the fall. We fished constantly, catching some really nice fish and almost always avoiding the skunk.
In April of our graduation year, my buddy Landon and I had an idea… Let’s ask his dad to borrow his bass boat and go fish some of the lakes in southeast Oklahoma that would normally be hard to fish in our float tubes. Surprisingly, he said yes and we were off to spend 4 days chasing largemouth in some of the best lakes Oklahoma has to offer.
We fished 3 lakes while we survived off of hot dogs, Dr. Pepper, and sandwiches. We fished at Lake Longmire, Pine Creek, and my personal favorite, McGee Creek. Going into it, we had a good plan and a fair amount of bass fishing experience, but had never been on a big lake by ourselves. Like most of the May months we experience here in Oklahoma, there were lots of storms and the waters on these lakes got a little high. Our 5 day trip started out with a skunk, followed by a one fish day, but we adapted and got a rapid education that might save our readers the hardship of going through it themselves.
The lakes were high and some areas we had previously had luck in were pretty muddy. We spent a whole day fishing these areas without a bite. As we drove to the boat ramp, we noticed the water getting clearer and put down the trolling motor to fish along the dam. Surprisingly, we started catching some fish! With our new plan of sticking to the clear water in place, we went out the next day ready for battle. We stuck to the clear water and we slayed them all day long.
After being convinced by Landon’s dad to go grab a hot dinner of Mexican food and a shower at a cheap motel, we headed to another lake in the morning. This body of water had lots of points jutting out into the lake and was reeling from the same muddy water problems we had already faced. Like the fools we were, we fished the points in the muddy part of the lake until we discovered that the water cleared up downstream again. We found the clear water full of hungry bass staged only on flooded willow bushes and crushed them the entire rest of the day.
The lessons we learned are simple and pretty standard for flooded lakes. Fish can see your bait better in the clear water. Often, the clearest water is found by the dam, so that is always a great place to check out! If you catch a fish, pay attention to the details surrounding that spot. Is it rock? Cattails? Water Willow? Wood? Just paying attention to the little details can be the key to unlocking the pattern for the lake!
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