# Caddo Lake



## Po Boy (Nov 29, 2010)

Does anyone fish Caddo Lake? I heard that some kind of water plant was just about to choke the life out of Caddo. I fished the lake on a regular basis back in the day and I loved that Lake. I am thinking of taking a little trip up there this summer. Can anyone give me inputs as to the status of the lake now?


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## hi rise fishing (Oct 23, 2009)

Before I moved to Houston 8 years ago, I had fished Caddo Lake almost every weekend. Although I lived within a 45 minute drive of 6 great bass lakes (including Toledo Bend), I favored Caddo above all. I only get to fish it once, or twice a year now.
The bass fishing was often frustrating, when it was "on" it was great! It is the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. The cypress trees and wildlife offer spectacular surroundings, and there is always an opportunity to catch a giant bass. A 16.07 lb largemouth was caught last Friday. The fisheries guys at Athens confirmed (through an implanted chip) that she was the same fish last turned in to the Lonker program last March. (Catch and release, guys!!!!)
The Summer schooling white bass fishing is outstanding. Don't plan to troll ... the lake is shallow and full of stumps and trees. Find the fish on top and cast to them. You can catch a hundred in a day. Also, hybrids. I got into a summer-time school once that covered 5 acres. The fish were huge, and they stayed up for almost 3 hours. I had the rear hooks pulled out of 4 rattletraps on the strike! It was one of the most exciting fishing trips I ever had.
For the last couple of years, invasive giant salvinia has become a major problem. Some areas have become choked in, and can't be fished. There is still lots of open water, though, and every cypress tree could have a double-digit fish on it!
Go for it. You won't be sorry!


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## dmzap (Dec 14, 2010)

*Caddo*

Thanks for the info. Am planning a first trip there myself.


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## Po Boy (Nov 29, 2010)

Thanks hi rise,
I fished the lake quite a bit 25 or 30 years ago. Your input matches what mine would have been back then with the exception of the weed and big bass, 6 to 7 lbs was big back then. Some years back Florida bass was introduced to the lake and the size started to increase. There was one place that I knew of that you could troll and it was a very effective method at times the bass schooled up. I will give away my old secret now, the old telephone or telegraph line that ran all the way across the lake in the area of Big Green Break / Little Green Break. The bottom of the lake was stump and weed free beside the old phone line. The bass would tear up a trolled Rattle Trap but would not hit any thing, any other way. Darnest thing I ever experienced.


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## hi rise fishing (Oct 23, 2009)

You're welcome, Po Boy. I hope you do get to fish Caddo again. I'm thinking of retiring on that lake ... if I can ever afford to retire. In August of '95 I caught my biggest bass of a lifetime of fishing ... an 8 1/2# beauty. She was 25 1/4" long. A pure Florida that long should have weighed at least 12#. It was 100 degrees that morning and she died in my livewell while I waited for the marina to open so I could get her weighed and released, so I have her on the wall.
I might even turn into a white perch fisherman, if I get to retire there. When I was a little kid, in the late '50s, my Dad had a picture of my cousin holding a crappie that weighed almost 5# that they caught on Caddo. No one thought about record-breaking fish back then, and the fish got released into a cast-iron skillet full of Crisco.
I never trolled on Caddo, but I was taught how to troll a Hot Spot for bass in the boat road on Black Bayou in Oil City, LA. by an old guy I worked with in the mid-70s. I remember how cold it was, since that was in January and the bass were rally estacked up. We caught lots of 4 and 5 lb bass that way. It was lots of fun.


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## Red3Fish (Jun 4, 2004)

*Funny you ask that PoBoy....*

My fishing buddy since childhood has a place on L Palestine ( 2 hours to Caddo). We are both retired and I spend about 2 wks of every month up there. I have been bugging him about trailering over to Caddo....if nothing else just to see the cypress and lilly pads in the swamp.

We will probably make an exploratory trip in the next month or so, more sight seeing and perch jerking than a serious fishing expedition.

I hear just the scenery is worth the trip.

Later
R3F


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## goinfaster (Mar 27, 2009)

I fish it for crappie once in a while. Hi rise sums it up fairly well. The invasive species is giant salvinia and it is a problem but hasn't decimated the lake . . . yet. Winter of '09-'10 knocked it back pretty good and there is a spraying and physical removal efforts ongoing. Fun to fish for crappie this time of year since you have the bonus of a likely big ole bass getting on as well.


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## Farmer Jim (May 21, 2004)

Po Boy and Hi Rise, ya'll are waking some memories in my old brain. I grew up in Shreveport and fished both Caddo and Black Bayou, along with Bistineau and Cross. Haven't been on any of them since around 1964. Caddo was undoubtedly the prettiest lake I ever fished. We only had fair luck there, but a day under those majestic cypress trees made a good trip even if you only managed a couple of bass. Sure killed a lot of ducks there during the winter though. We did much better on Black Bayou and my personal best came out of there at 6 lbs 12 oz. That was a big bass back in the pre-florida strain days of the early 60's. 

Hi Rise, did you ever catch those southern chain pickerel in Black Bayou? During the winter months we used to catch lots of them there. Really good jumpers and would flare those bright red gills while in the air. We always called them Jackfish and it wasn't until some time in the 70's when I saw a guy with one at a marina at Toledo Bend that I learned their correct name. I have no idea why he kept it beause I always heard they weren't good to eat. We also caught a few Jackfish in Caddo, but nothing like in Black Bayou. I've caught 25-30 in a morning at Black Bayou lots of times. I've never caught one anywhere else except those two lakes. 

Good memories.


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## hi rise fishing (Oct 23, 2009)

Jim,
I too, grew up in Shreveport and fished all of those cypress lakes. When I moved to Houston and got my weekend place on Livingston, I didn't know what to do ... there weren't any trees to throw my rubber worm to! I've had to learn a whole new way to fish. Fortunately, I've beed able to adapt, and I catch a few now and then.
Caddo had such a huge draw for me that even after I built a home on the north side of Cross Lake, I still towed my boat up to Caddo to fish most weekends. There were plenty of fish on Cross, but it just isn't the same.
I've caught plenty of jackfish on all the lakes you mentioned. In the spring, a white spinnerbait, or gold Rogue wasn't safe from them. The Smithwick Bait Co. was just down Highway 1 from where I lived, and I passed the factory everytime I went to Caddo. I guess those Rogues are made in China now. The jackfish would chew all the color off those old Rogues. After a morning of catching those smelly creatures, the bait looked 100 years old!
e used to go to Black Bayou a lot when I was in high school (the late 60s). We would go to Caldwell's Landing, where we could rent a jonboat with a small outboard for $7.50 a day and fish 'til we couldn't see any more. Every time I went, Mr. Caldwell would open his freezer and pull out a huge bream, that some guy "caught last week." I'll bet he showed me that same bream 50 times over a 5 year period. The last time I went there (20 years ago), the grass had covered the lake. I could barely see a few patches of water here and there. I didn't even try to launch. My son and I just drove on over to Oil City and fished Caddo.
The good ol' days!!
Tom


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## Farmer Jim (May 21, 2004)

hi rise fishing said:


> Jim,
> I too, grew up in Shreveport and fished all of those cypress lakes. When I moved to Houston and got my weekend place on Livingston, I didn't know what to do ... there weren't any trees to throw my rubber worm to! I've had to learn a whole new way to fish. Fortunately, I've beed able to adapt, and I catch a few now and then.
> Caddo had such a huge draw for me that even after I built a home on the north side of Cross Lake, I still towed my boat up to Caddo to fish most weekends. There were plenty of fish on Cross, but it just isn't the same.
> I've caught plenty of jackfish on all the lakes you mentioned. In the spring, a white spinnerbait, or gold Rogue wasn't safe from them. The Smithwick Bait Co. was just down Highway 1 from where I lived, and I passed the factory everytime I went to Caddo. I guess those Rogues are made in China now. The jackfish would chew all the color off those old Rogues. After a morning of catching those smelly creatures, the bait looked 100 years old!
> ...


Tom,
Gosh that's sad to hear about Black Bayou. I don't remember any grass back when we fished it. I guess, like so many places, it came in on boat trailers.

We also went to Caldwells. We would bring a tent and camp out there all night running trot lines with chicken guts we got at Cotton's Grocery in Shreveport. They sold a 2 gal cardboard bucket for about half a dollar. We never caught much on the lines, and I really don't know if that lake was any good for catfish or not. Camping out had us there for the crack of dawn bass fishing though, and that was really why we went. That lake could be really hot during the spring. We used to bounce tiny torpedos and devil horses off those stumps, twitch them once, and then just let it sit until the blow-up. I never thought of it at the time, but I guess they were on spawning beds beside those stumps.

Like you, we rented a boat.....but we didn't need a motor. My father had a 3.5 hp Johnson that he let us use. We would buy a gallon of premixed gas at Caldwells (he sold it in glass jugs LOL!), and that gallon would last us all night running the lines and all the next day bass fishing.

I also lived near Cross Lake, but I was on the south side. I fished Cross almost exclusively until we got old enough to drive and started hitting the other lakes in the area. Back then (1955 - 1961) there was nothing on Willow Point and I used to wade the shore line there throwing a popper with a fly rod getting bream to bait drop lines we set all along the point. You couldn't swim in the lake back then and I guess we were lucky the Cross Lake Patrol never caught us wading. We used to get a lot of real nice cats on those drop lines and even caught a several nice bass. Once we caught a gaspergou that must have weighed 20 lbs. Again, guess we were lucky not to have been caught keeping those bass.

This thread is a real coincidence because just last week, after almost 50 years, I found one of the high school buddies I fished with back then through a web search. He's in Denver now and I gave him a call that ended up being over an hour of rehashing those days.

You're right. The good ole days.

BTW, did you go to Fair Park? I gradusted from there in 1961.


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## hi rise fishing (Oct 23, 2009)

Jim,
Not Fair Park for me. I went to Byrd for my sophomore year, then Capt. Shreve opened and I went there for 2 years. I graduated in '69.
Tom


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