After I moved to Gun Barrel City in 2013, Cedar Creek became my home lake, and I pretty much just fish it all the time. The past three years, I’ve been making bass bed sight fishing trips to Lake Fork in March and April, but the rest of the year, it’s been back to Cedar Creek. But with all the flooding, Cedar Creek is staying murkier than I’ve ever seen it, and the fishing has been tough for me, so I’ve skipped posting anything the last couple of weeks. I’ve caught a few fish every trip, but not what I would expect to be catching in May. Last week, I finally decided it was time for something different, and made two trips to Lake Athens. Lake Athens is a clear lake, full of aquatic vegetation, with a good population of nice size bass. It has a restrictive limit for black bass, plus is located right next door to the biggest TP&W hatchery in the state, so gets well stocked with fingerlings, plus some brood fish that get released. Bottom line, it’s a good bass lake, with nice clear water, and only 30 minutes from home. I decided it’s time I started fishing it some.

I went fishing at Lake Athens both Tuesday and Thursday last week. I’d only made two previous trips to Lake Athens, one was crappie fishing, and the other was bed fishing in March, two years ago. Like most lakes with big grass beds, that is the predominant cover for bass fishing. I’m having to learn those grass beds, and with the lake a few inches above normal level, the edges of those grass beds are tougher to see, making learning them tougher as well, but I’m having fun learning the lake, and catching some fish along the way. I caught 7 bass Tuesday, including 5.38 and 4.10 pounders. On Thursday, I caught 9 bass, and the best two weighed 4.08 and 4.80 pounds.

I’d forgotten how much fun it is to fish grass beds. But my usual Ned rig baits seem a bit small for this lake. With finesse TRD’s, all the bites I got were from either crappie or perch. And even with the four inch Scented Jerk Shadz, I got lots of crappie and perch bites. I actually caught 4 crappie and a perch. I ended up thinking I need to add a bigger bait for this lake. So I bought some five inch Scented Jerk Shadz’s, and made heavier jigs with bigger hooks to rig them with. I’m going to try them out this week. Up to this point, every finesse plastic bait I had fished had been on the 1/16 oz Ned rig jigs, but the five inch Shadz’s will be on a 1/8 oz jig with a bigger 2/0 hook, so should probably be called “jig and minnow” rather than Ned rig. We’ll see how that rig works.

Best fish from Tuesday, 5.38 pounds.

Thursday’s best bass, 4.80 pounds.