Fast-moving fish!

When I read the quote below on Facebook last night, I kind of chuckled and said to myself, “If anybody else had said this, I’d wonder if they were stretching the truth”. But since I know Nick Young of the D’Arbonne Lake Guide Service and his fishing ability pretty well, I just shook my head and said, “I’m not surprised he’s still catching them.” And he is.

Here’s what Nick said on Facebook:

“Despite 💯 mph current,the last 4 days have been great on lake Darbonne, from the looks of things this spring is going to be unbelievable, if you want want to catch some big prespawn fish give me a call at 318-243-8646, or message me on Facebook!!”

So I gave him a call, not to go fishing, but to get our first fishing report of the year for our readers. As usual, he obliged.

“Right now, the fish want to be out in that deep water, but they can’t be,” he said. “The current is just so strong it has blown them up in just about any eddy or slack water that you can find. That’s where the shad are and that’s where the crappie have gone. They just can’t stay out in that current. Right now, if you can find 12 feet of water or deeper with little or no current, that’s where they will be.”

“The last four days have been incredible and there haven’t been that many people fishing. I think the color of the water is making it tough for most people, too. That’s why I like to use a big jig head and a big bright black and chartreuse or pink and chartreuse bait. I’m topping them with as big a shiner as I can find.”

December was as bad a month as Nick can remember with all the on-and-off rain and the opening and closing of the tainter gate. Nick thinks it will take at least 10 days to two weeks for the lake to stabilize after all these rains and get back to normal January fishing patterns. With the increased current from the tainter gates, D’Arbonne is getting more muddy than it ever has before in cases like this. That isn’t helping anything, either.

“The main thing you need to remember right now is that you can’t get a bait down in that current in 25 foot of water on the channel, and if you could, there aren’t any fish there. If the channel markers are shaking in the current, those crappie are gone to calmer waters, even if it is more shallow than they want it to be.”