Falcon Reservoir Predicted to break BASS records!

[brendanc]

So the Elite series is at Falcon Reservoir in Texas this week. The word on the street is that Falcon Reservoir is going to break "ALL" the BASS records. So I'm just wondering... is this media hype, or the real deal?



The Texas State Parks and Wildlife department stated "Falcon has long been regarded as one of the best largemouth bass lakes in the state. To win a bass tournament at Falcon, it often takes a 5-6 pound average/fish for your stringer" SOURCE

That's pretty impressive and according to ESPN the general consensus among the 109 Elite Series Anglers is that "no record in the book is safe".

In reading about this lake, I think one of the most interesting facts is how the lake size started at a surface area of 83,654 acres and then was reduced to only 13,000 Acres. The lake stayed down for a few years and the old shoreline became over grown with brush and cover. When the lake filled back up, there was suddenly an over abundance of available cover, which changed this reservoir forever (or at least for the time being). They stocked Falcon with Florida strain largemouths who are now flourishing in its waters.

The lake record is 15.12 lbs and was caught back in 1991 by Scotty Deaton. SOURCE

The pros keep talking about how mean (strong fighting) the bass in this lake are. They are also commenting on how spinning gear is not an option for this event... everything is braid and bait casters.

So what do you guys think, will records fall? Does anyone else have any info about this lake? Please feel free to share as this is an open topic for all...

Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say.

BC

[brendanc]

Holy Cow... look at the day one results!!!

Aaron Martens hauled in 42 pounds to lead a field that included 18 bags over 30 pounds and a 13-2 lunker from Scott Campbell.

Martins had an 8.4lbs average!!! That's right, 5 fish over 8lbs was his average...

If you broke 20 lbs for five fish... congrats you made the top 80!

Bassmaster Elite - Day 1



SOURCE

[brendanc]

Why are we talking about this... we should grab my boat and drive down there! (I wish)

It will also be interesting to see if the weights stay consistant over 4 days... from what everyone has been saying, they should.

[Roboworm99]

I thought my boy Aaron had it...but he and Byron burned up the spot.

[brendanc]

I hear ya Robo... He needs to get control over his last day gitters (or whatever you want to call it). I like him a lot, but don't wait until the last day to complain about Velvick fishing the same area as him. If he was going to push him off that spot, he needed to do it on day 1.

What a crazy finish... look at these final stats:

http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassm ... mentId=832

[Roboworm99]

Knowing his personality a bit...I think he was hoping Byron would have left him to the spot. But since they are buds, I don't think he would feel comfortable doing that. They pre fish together as well.

[brendanc]

Yeah, he comes across as very easy going. If you haven't already read it, here's the link to the article on Bassmaster's website: Aaron Martin's Article

[johnnie crain outdoors]

Paul Elias (one of my crankin' heroes) 132 pounds eight ounces. Mann's 20+. What a catch!! Johnnie

[Roboworm99]

Aaron is right...his wife will smack him for this one...as well as his mom, an excellent bass angler as well.

[wgbassgirl]

Here's another little article hyping up the Falcon Reservoir.

April 17, 2008, 1:01AM
Falcon Lake the place to be again


By SHANNON TOMPKINS
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Article Source

A new, nice hotel recently opened in Zapata. And it's staying booked, especially on weekends.

For a lot of places, this would be minor news.

But for the 5,500 or so residents of this sun-baked seat of Zapata County (population 13,600), the new hotel is another sign that things are looking up in this hardscrabble country hard against the Rio Grande.

The fuel behind the new hotel — the renovation of other Zapata-area hospitality businesses, the caravans of boat-hauling vehicles pulling up at local gas stations and groceries, and the constant stream of customers into brothers Tom and James Bendele's fishing tackle store — can be seen from some of the town's streets.

It's water. More to the point, the attraction is what's in the water of Falcon Reservoir, whose Arroyo Veleno arm sits on Zapata's southern boundary.

Largemouth bass — big ones, and lots of them — are bringing all the attention and traffic and dollars to Zapata.

Falcon Reservoir, all but evaporated for most of a decade, is back.

Its water level hasn't quite recovered; the lake is still about 22 feet below the "full" mark.

But the largemouth bass fishing in the reservoir shared by Texas and Mexico is more than back.

"It's just been crazy good," Tom Bendele, who runs Falcon Lake Tackle fishing equipment business with his brother James, said of bass fishing on Falcon Reservoir. "Bass fishing is as good as it's ever been on Falcon."

That's saying something.

Falcon, impounded 54 years ago on a stretch of the Rio Grande between Laredo and McAllen, was for decades one of the state's most outstanding largemouth bass fisheries. It may have been the best.

Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Falcon regularly ranked as the top overall bass fishery in Texas, according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department survey of fishing tournament results. The rankings took into consideration the number of bass caught and the average size of the fish.

Falcon annually blew away Fork, Rayburn, Toledo Bend, and other much more well-known Texas bass fisheries in the tournament rankings. And TPWD surveys of the fisheries through creel surveys and samplings of the fisheries with electrofishing and nets showed a booming bass population.

The big border lake drew a river of anglers from across Texas and the nation.

Then it all dried up.

A La Niña-triggered drought that began in Mexico in the late 1980s spread to cover South and West Texas by the early 1990s.

Falcon's water level began dropping. Fast. By 1995, the lake had fallen more than 40 feet below the full mark.

It remained more than 30 feet below normal level for almost a decade, falling to a record low of 52 feet below normal pool level in the summer of 2003.

At its lowest level in 2003, almost the only water in the reservoir was in the long-drowned channels of the Rio Grande and a few feeder creeks. Land that had been covered with water since 1954 was exposed.


Fish numbers way down
Falcon had shriveled to less than 10 percent of its "normal" size.

With the water went the fish and the fishermen.

Survival of young-of-the-year largemouth bass plummeted.

Young bass require cover — aquatic vegetation, drowned timber, etc. — in which to hide from predators, said Randy Myers, district biologist for TPWD's inland fisheries division, explained. The desiccated lake provided little.

Just as damaging to fishing, the falling lake level made it nearly impossible for anglers to access what water remained. Boat ramps were unusable. Many were left hundreds of yards from water. Even if anglers wanted to fish what remained of Falcon, they couldn't reach the water.

But the drought set the stage for Falcon's fishery to rise from the ashes.

Over the decade of extremely low water, the exposed lake bottom exploded in vegetation. Grasses and a mix of brush and trees blanketed the fertile soil.

When the drought broke and water came back, as it began to do late in 2003, the rising lake covered that jungle of vegetation.

Falcon's water level jumped 20 feet in late 2003 and early 2004. By 2005, it was 40 feet higher than at its 2003 ebb. Surface acreage went from less than 10,000 to about 60,000 acres.

"What you had, essentially, was a 'new' lake," Myers said. "And history tells us that a reservoir is most productive during its first seven years or so."

The vegetation covered by the rising water fueled an explosion in the largemouth bass fishery.

"We saw great survival of young fish," Myers said. "They had so much cover to hide it."

Also, the deterioration of drowned vegetation pumped nutrients into the water, super-charging the lake's food chain. Primary bass forage species such as gizzard and threadfin shad boomed.

The result was a fishery on fire. The lake's largemouth population skyrocketed, and the fish grew fat and fast on the abundant forage.

Anglers began to flow back as news leaked of Falcon's resurrection. Still, fishing pressure was relatively light. Despite the 30-foot rise, only a few boat ramps were usable. And Falcon is a long way from Texas' major population centers.

"Falcon is four hours from San Antonio. It's a two-hour drive to Choke Canyon, and three to Amistad," Myers said. "Fishing's great at Choke and Amistad. So a lot of fishermen go to those lakes instead of Falcon."

The low recreational fishing pressure just added steam to Falcon's blossoming bass fishery.

"Lack of (fishing) pressure is a key on Falcon," Myers said. "It's such a big lake with so much cover, fishing pressure hasn't impacted it."

Evidence of Falcon's surging bass fishery showed up on TPWD surveys as early as 2005. That year, creel surveys indicated Falcon anglers' catch rate of largemouth bass was 1.4 per hour.

"That's the highest catch rate I've ever seen," Myers said. For comparison, a recent creel survey on Lake Amistad, considered by some as the hottest bass fishery in Texas, showed a catch rate of 0.8 bass per hour.

But the most in-your-face confirmation of Falcon's resurgence came earlier this month when a major fishing tournament was held on the reservoir.


Prosperous contest
The results from the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament were stunning.

Angler Paul Elias won the four-day tournament and its $100,000 top prize with 20 bass (five-bass limit per day) that weighed 132 pounds, 8 ounces.

Elias' catch averaged more than 6.6 pounds per fish and was the heaviest four-day stringer in Bassmaster history.

Six other tournament anglers also broke that four-day stringer mark.

The heaviest single-day, five-bass stringer in the tournament weighed a stupefying 44 pounds, 4 ounces — almost 9 pounds per bass.

It took a Falcon bass weighing more than 10 pounds to win big-bass honors each day of the four-day tournament. The heaviest of the lot was a 13-pound, 2-ounce fish.

Of the 109 anglers in the contest, 107 landed five-bass limits the first day, and 105 took limits the second day. Every one of the anglers fishing the third and fourth day of the contest took five-bass limits.

It took a two-day, 10-bass catch averaging more than 5 pounds per fish to make the cut to qualify for the third day of the contest.

The 1,386 Falcon bass weighed by tournament anglers averaged a bit more than 4.9 pounds.

The average amateur bass angler can't expect those kinds of catch
es from Falcon. But they can expect to have a shot at excellent numbers and quality largemouth.

"If you have any kind of bass fishing skills, you can go out and do great on Falcon," Tom Bendele said. "It's as good a bass fishery as there is in the country."

A lot of people agree. The parking lot of that new hotel in Zapata is packed every weekend, almost exclusively with trucks hooked to boat trailers.