Lubbock Lake Records

I discovered that there are only two lake records recorded for the 30+ public water bodies in my town. Sounds like fun to me!

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Lake Records #18 and 19

Fished Huneke Park and caught a bunch of small common carp, a couple of black bullhead, and one fish I am pretty sure was a common carp x goldfish hybrid. 

I contacted the TPWD regarding the hybrid, but unfortunately their biologists were unable to make a definitive identification based on the photos I took, so I ended up submitting is as a common carp.

As you can see in the above image, the fish in question doesn’t have barbels. In addition, it had a different (deeper) body shape and orange spots on some of its scales. This is the second hybrid I’ve caught in Lubbock’s parks, and if I catch another I am planning to take more photos and maybe a scale sample to submit, as there are currently no hybrid carp records in the state.

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Lake Records #16 and 17.

This weekend we fished Crow Park and had a really good time. The park is one of the nicer ones we’ve been to recently, with plenty of trees near the water and a playground nearby as well.

While we caught plenty of fish (5 carp, a black bullhead, and 3 or 4 redear sunfish) everything we caught was pretty small. Only three of the carp were over 2 lbs, with the largest being only 2.75 lbs. The black bullhead was 8 oz, making it only just barely big enough to qualify for a water body record. Incredibly, I caught the bullhead on a 15mm boilie.

We also saw several gizzard shad floating dead in the water, a few turtles, and many ducks and geese, including two mother ducks with 4 ducklings each. 

Notably, the most recent stocking of this lake by the TPWD was blue catfish in 2003. That and the shad we saw, along with how pleasant it was, makes me want to come back with my catfish gear and see what else is in there!

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Lake Record #15

My wife and I fished the pond in Miller Park this weekend, and while we didn’t catch anything on Saturday, we had a pretty great time on Sunday morning.

I was fishing two rods: one with the panko/sweet corn/jello pack bait I got from Luke over at the Catfish and Carp YouTube channel, and the other I was fishing with 15mm Strawbery Crush boilies I ordered a while back from Big Carp Tackle. We ended up catching 6 common carp, 3 on each bait, all within the space of about an hour and a half, including my wife’s first ever carp which she caught on one of my rods while I was landing one on the other. The biggest, pictured above, was 23.5″ long and weighed 5 lbs, and was the first fish I have ever caught on a boilie. I suspect the success with the boilies, which I have used many other times but never caught anything on until now, was partly due to fishing the same spot with them as I had the afternoon before. That said, they started biting both baits at the same time, and we caught the same number on each. Who knows.

We saw lots of turtles (just like last time we fished this lake), but they didn’t bother us this time.

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Something About Those Carp?

Just noticed that no fewer that 5 of my posts that included photos of carp had been flagged and hidden by Tumblr for “adult content”... I don’t see it, but it makes you wonder lol

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This, my new personal best White Crappie, was caught this past weekend in Lake Granbury about 50 yards from where I caught my personal best Largemouth Bass almost a year to the day ago.

In fact, I was bass fishing with a rat-l-trap crankbait when I caught it! Unfortunately, I left my scale and tape measure in the car so I don’t know exactly how big it was, but my best guess is somewhere around 13 inches.

It had been raining all day and was 30+ degrees colder than it had been the day before but a buddy and I went out to give it a shot for about 45 minutes between downpours. A few minutes before I caught this, I had a pretty good Largemouth Bass on that I got to see throw the lure when it stuck its head above water and shook it loose.

My friend, of course, immediately tied on a rat-l-trap and managed to snag and lose it on his first cast. Good times!

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Lake Record #14

Another better-sized (for Lubbock) Common Carp at 22″ and 5.75 lbs, this one was caught from Leftwich Park.

The park is flanked on the East and West by apartment buildings, and on the North by a line of houses. We were here a couple of different days, and it seems like a place people enjoy being as we never had the place to ourselves even on a Monday afternoon while we would normally be at work.

The first time we came out we didn’t catch anything at all, but the second time we came out for less than 2 hours on a beautiful afternoon and I caught 2 carp while my wife caught a nice black bullhead.

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Lake Record #13

This 24″ long 5.75 lb Common Carp is the 2nd largest one I’ve caught while fishing the park lakes in Lubbock these last couple of years. I caught it at Buster Long Park (just North of the South Plains Mall), a lake I did not initially have high hopes for.

We tried fishing this one a couple of times, the first being too windy (and cold) to be much fun, but the second time we came out it was very nice.

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Lake Record #12

Two days after I caught #11 I caught this beautiful Common Carp at Dupree Park. This was one of the smaller lake record carp I’ve caught at 18.75″ and 2.25 lbs, but it had by far the most interesting coloration of any of the carp I’ve caught in the lakes around town, and I saw similar colors on several of the fish I caught that day.

When my wife and I arrived at the lake one of the neighbors whose house looks out over it informed us there had been a water main break nearby a few days earlier, and the municipal water draining into the lake had resulted in a large number of dead fish. He was pretty surprised when we started catching them.

This was a fun morning of fishing after a night of good rain, even if the fish we caught were all small.

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Lake Record #11

This is the largest common carp I’ve caught from any of the park lakes in town in the past 2 years of focusing on them almost exclusively. it was caught from Clifford Andrews Park, measured 25″ long, and weighed 6.5 lbs. I only fished this lake one evening for a couple of hours, and caught two fish in that time. The other one I caught was also above average size for Lubbock Parks at over 5 lbs.

If you are looking for a good place to fish for carp (and I’ve heard the bass fishing is pretty good as well), then this is at or near the top of my list. A fellow fisherman who I briefly spoke with while I was there (who claimed to be a fireman with access to maps of local lakes to help with water rescues) indicated that this is one of the deepest lakes in town as well. I am inclined to believe that, as the bank is noticeably more steeply sloped than other area lakes.

I was set up on the North side of the lake, to the East of the large main inlet. 

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I’m Back

Sorry about the lack of posts. Hard to believe it’s been close to a year!

I have been fishing, and in fact I’ve set another 4 lake records since my last update. I’ll post each one, and try to keep up from here on out.

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Fished Bill and Ann Miller Park on Saturday evening. I caught two turtles (which are all over that lake) and one baby channel catfish before I ran out of bait, but the sunset was pretty fantastic. 

Total elapsed time between those three photos was 12 minutes, from 8:39 to 8:51.

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Lake Record #10

Ladies and gentlemen, I finally caught a fish out of Canyon Lake Project #3 (Comancheria Lake)! This common carp was 18.25″ long and 4.25 lbs. That’s just about average for the ones I’ve been catching in the other lakes around town.

Since the last time I was out there the Lubbock Parks and Recreation Department have done a ton of work on improving the lake. The reeds have been trimmed back, there have been some park benches and tables installed, and they’ve put in a dock with a kayak launch.

The fish were jumping, but it still took me 3 sessions this weekend to finally catch one after dark. This is definitely the most hours I’ve spent fishing to catch a single fish. Easily 40 hours all told, over the course of 10 or so days starting last September. It’s a beautiful place to fish, if only the fish would cooperate!

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3 lbs, 4 oz Largemouth Bass caught in Lake Granbury on April 16, 2018.

Took a little weekend trip to Dallas and stopped for a night at my in-law’s house in Granbury. Caught this one (my new PB largemouth) just off a boat ramp about 200 yards from their house.

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Should have known better.

Tried fishing Canyon Lake Project #3 again the other day. We’d driven past it and saw that the city had been through and cleared most of the reeds along the bank, opening what had previously been unreachable areas, and we decided to give it a shot one warm afternoon. Nothing. Not a single bite. We’ve now fished it five times, and all told we’ve caught one bluegill, one green sunfish, and two turtles.

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Lake Record #9

Had a very eventful weekend which culminated in a 20″, 3.75 lb lake record common carp (the biggest of 3 caught) from Elmore City Park (Leroy Elmore Park) Sunday evening.

The bottom picture, above, is the rig I use for carp fishing: an in-line method lead with a short leader to a #6 hook, with a piece of fake floating corn tied on with a hair. Most of the carp gear I use now I ordered from www.bigcarptackle.com, with a sweetcorn and bread-crumb pack bait I learned to make from Luke over at the Catfish and Carp Youtube channel. However, I spent most of my childhood catching carp and bullhead catfish using just corn or biscuit dough on a Wal-Mart special spinning rod with 8# test mono and treble hooks, so don’t feel like you have to buy all this stuff before you can catch carp. I will say that I have yet to gut-hook a fish with this hair rig setup. 

Friday night and Saturday morning we had a blast fishing for little 6 to 8-inch largemouth bass with ultralight gear in a little stock tank that’s hardly more than a puddle at my wife’s family’s ranch. We must have caught every fish in that pond, twice, despite our 3-year old spending most of his time throwing rocks in.

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Didn’t have much time to fish this weekend, but I did manage about an hour at Leroy Elmore Park. Saw several fish jump, and got a nibble or two, but didn’t get any good bites (fishing for carp and catfish).

The bird watching here is pretty outstanding though. That island in the middle is absolutely packed with snowy egrets, great blue herons (one of which I saw catch a fish), hundreds of ducks, and all sorts of other smaller birds. They make quite a racket, though.

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Lake Record #8

Went out with the family and a friend to Higginbotham Park for an hour and a half after work yesterday, and caught a couple of better-sized common carp while my 3-year-old played on the playground.

The bigger one (pictured) measured 20.25 inches, and weighed 3 lbs 12 oz.