The lakes we fish are located in the Fort Worth are and are only a short drive from anywhere in the DFW metroplex. If you are wanting to do some Fort Worth fishing and catch some blue, channel or flathead catfish then give us a call at 817-522-3804.

Now is the time to catch those big winter blue catfish on rod and reel. Trophy class fish are being caught on almost every trip. This is your chance to catch the fish of a lifetime!

Water temperature is still a lot warmer than I would like it to be for the big blue catfish but we are catching excellent numbers of fish in the mid to high teens and have caught numerous fish in the 20-25 lb range in the past couple of weeks.

I’m fishing both Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth right now.

I have a few available dates for December, a handful of January dates and still some for February also.

Now is also the time to get your spring shallow water blue catfish trip booked to get your choice of dates. I already have multiple spring bookings so the weekends will fill up fast.

Give me a call at 817-522-3804

Here are a few photos from the past few days.

We got a couple of big rains last week near Eagle Mountain Lake and the runoff helped the water levels significantly. The lake is still not back at pool but it came up quite a beat. Hopefully now that we are at the end of the summer and the heat seems to be breaking the water will stop dropping so fast. We got rained out this morning and there is more rain forecasted this week so hopefully it will continue and the water will keep coming up, or at least stop dropping.

Fishing has been good up until last week when we got all the rain, it has been a little tough since then. We are still fishing for channel catfish primarily but have done some fishing for blue catfish as well here in the past week.  The bite has been a little hit and miss and we have really been having to work for the fish that we are catching. I have done some white bass fishing as well of recent to help fill in the gaps but they have been scattered on Eagle Mountain Lake just like the catfish.

We are catching channel catfish on punch baits in shallower water using my Secret Channel Catfish Rig using the same techniques outlined in my Summer Channel Catfish Techniques book. The blue catfish are being caught on fresh shad on main lake points, ledges and flats, you just have to get out and use your sonar and find them. The white bass we have been catching have been a combination of surfacing fish caught on topwaters, some slabbing and a little bit of trolling using the hellpet rig.

It seems like the fishing is trying to straighten out now so I expect the next few weeks to be better until the turnover hits. When Eagle Mountain Lake turns over it impacts the fishing much more than it does on other lakes for some reason and the fishing is always tough.

I am getting some calls for Trophy Blue Catfish trips and the time is right around the corner. I will be running this trips this winter primarily on Lake Worth again. As soon as we have a couple of good cold snaps and the water temperature drops the fishing for the big trophy catfish will be good.

Give me a call at 817-522-3804 or email me at chad@learntocatchcatfish.com to book your fishing trip!

Here are a few action videos I put together recently from some footage I filmed last year and over the winter.

Eagle Mountain Lake Fishing Report May 2012

Let me start with the Eagle Mountain Lake fishing report. The channel catfish bite is on fire and is as good as it gets. We are catching easy limits of channel catfish every trip on Eagle Mountain Lake fishing with punch bait and the secret channel catfish rig. The fishing is about as good as it gets for channel cat and will stay this way for a good while. There is not a lot of size to the fish as most will run 1-3 lbs but the fishing action is fast and furious. This is a great time to get kids out on the water with me because there is no waiting or down time and it is very fast paced fishing. I have a few afternoon and evening spots open for this month but my weekends are full into June. I do have some June weekends open for guided catfish trips on Eagle Mountain Lake. Give me a call at 817-522-3804 or email me at chad@learntocatchcatfish.com if you want to get something setup.

The Eagle Mountain Lake Alligator

I have had about 30 phone calls, text messages and emails in the past 24 hours from people wanting to know about the Eagle Mountain Lake alligator.

There is a photo circulating of a big alligator that was allegedly killed on Eagle Mountain Lake (photo below).

First let me say it has been common knowledge for many years that there are some big gators in Lake Worth and we have seen them out there for years. We have also been seeing them in the river between Eagle Mountain and Lake Worth for years also. Everyone knows that they are there, yes they are big, and yes there are many of them. There are even signs around the Tarrant Regional Water District pond below the Eagle Mountain Lake dam stating there are gators in there.

There have been several pictures circulating this year of big alligators that were allegedly taken on Eagle Mountain Lake. I spend more time on the lake than most people do and up until this year I have never seen an alligators in Eagle Mountain Lake. This year however I have seem two different gators, and both of them I have seen within the last month. I know there were two different alligators because they were substantially different in size.

The first spotting was a gator that was significantly larger than the one in the photo below. I have seen the bigger one three different times in the past thirty days. It really should not come as any surprise.

Now, as far as this alligator goes. No I don’t know who killed it. The rumor going around is that it was killed by the game wardens but I verified that the game wardens did not kill this alligator.

I also do not have any verification that the dead gator shown below came from Eagle Mountain Lake so as far as I know there is no verification that it did indeed come from Eagle Mountain. I was told (from an “official”  source that I cannot name) that the situation was “under investigation” and it is not being discussed at this time.

Eagle Mountain Lake Fishing Report 

This has been an odd spring on Eagle Mountain Lake and what has been happening there has been consistent with what has happened on most of the other lakes in North Texas. The blue catfish bite great for a few days and then the bite slacks off for a few days. In all the years I have been a fishing guide this has never been an issue in the spring and the only thing I can point to is the unseasonably warm winter and how quickly the water warmed up this year. We are still chasing the blue catfish but when they don’t cooperate pretty quickly we are switching to fishing for channel catfish instead of spending all morning chasing fish that don’t want to cooperate.

We are fishing for channel cats with Sure Shot Catfish Punch Bait and Sudden Impact Fiber Bait from Team Catfish  fished in combination with my Secret Channel Catfish Rig.

THE CHANNEL CATFISH BITE IS ABSOLUTELY ON FIRE and should stay this way the rest of the Summer into early October. Most days we have been able to catch huge numbers of channels in no time at all and easy limits for 4-5 people in a half day trip most mornings or afternoons. This fishing is a lot of fun and is something I really enjoy doing.

If you are not close enough to come fish with North Texas Catfish Guide Service and want to learn how I go about locating and catching these fish you can check out the Spring Blue Catfish Techniques program as well as the Summer Channnel Catfish Techniques program.

If you would like to book a trip give me a call at 817-522-3804 or email me chad@learntocatchcatfish.com

Eagle Mountain Lake Water Levels

I have been getting a lot of questions about the Eagle Mountain Lake water levels lately since the drought of 2011 in North Texas. The good news is Eagle Mountain Lake is full (actually slightly over pool) and we seem to keep getting rain so there are no immediate concerns with the water levels. It will start dropping again when it gets hot but the water district has stated they are going to leave the watering restrictions in place this year so that should help.

The first of these “technique” type books was the Summer Channel Catfish Techniques program that was a step by step guide to help people with locating and catching channel catfish in the summer months.

I just released the next installment in this series of programs called Spring Blue Catfish Techniques. This is a step by step guide to locating and catching blue catfish in the months of March, April and May. This is hands down the best time of the year for catching huge numbers of blue catfish and an excellent time of the year for fishing.

The blue catfish techniques program walks you step by step through the process of everything you need to know to be successful catfishing in the spring, all bundled in a nice neat little package that is easy to understand. Any angler regardless of skill level will be able to pick this up and get started catching blue cat in the spring after reading this book and reviewing the online information.

Of course if you don’t come fish with me your missing out on an awesome time and won’t have the pleasure of my company, my striking good looks and charming personality but I recognize everyone cannot get to North Texas to fish with me on Eagle Mountain Lake, Lake Worth or one of the other lakes we fish, but the Spring Catfishing e-book is the next best thing!

You can check it out at http://www.springcatfishing.com or watch the sneak peak videos below!

BY BOB HOOD

Special to the Star-Telegram

Some anglers dream of making a record-setting catch and having their names inked into the Texas Fish Records book.

Twelve-year-old Lane Ferguson of Fort Worth not only has experienced that but has received seven awards for catching a monster blue catfish at Lake Worth just before Christmas, which was certified by the Texas Parks and Wildlife recently.

On Dec. 23, the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw middle school student caught a blue catfish weighing 66.28 pounds on a shad caught in a cast net by his father, professional catfishing guide Chad Ferguson of North Texas Catfishing Guide Service.

The catch beat the former Lake Worth record blue catfish of 55 pounds caught on Dec. 22, 2001, by Larry Farmer. A blue catfish weighing 72 pounds also was caught at Lake Worth in December but it was not certified as a record because two anglers shared their efforts in catching and landing the fish.

“I have had Lane fishing ever since he was big enough to walk,” Chad Ferguson said. “He is definitely an outdoors person, fishing or hunting. He can use any type of rod and reel, from bait casters to spinning and spin casting gear. He caught the big one at Lake Worth in about 22-feet deep water on cut shad and it took him about 10 minutes to get it to the boat. We got it all on video.

“We tried three different ledges, and Lane hooked into the big fish on the third ledge. I wasn’t sure my scales were exact, so we loaded up and went to another place that had certified scales to see if it beat the Lake Worth record, which it did. That was the only fish we caught that day but it was the one we were hoping to catch.”

Ferguson said he knew his son had hooked a possible lake record as soon as he set the hook. “When he began fighting it, I pulled up the anchor and started reeling the other rods in,” Ferguson said. “It was pretty windy and the fish began moving the boat across the water. I finally was able to net the fish and we took it to have it weighed on other scales, then brought it back to Lake Worth and released it.”

Lake Worth is one of the oldest man-made reservoirs in Texas. It was impounded in 1914 on the West Fork of the Trinity River by the city of Fort Worth for water-use purposes. But it has undergone siltation problems over the years that have limited its deepest depths to about 20 feet or lower.

A state fish hatchery used to be nearby on the 3,489-surface-acre reservoir but has since only been occupied by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries research facility.

Lake Worth also gained national attention in the 1960s and years afterward when individuals reported sightings of a goat-fish-man-like creature later tabbed as the “Lake Worth Monster.” The lake also has had reported sightings of alligators and other interesting creatures, but for anglers, the big news has been about fish.

The lake has produced several big catches besides blue catfish. Among them are a 12-pound largemouth bass, 10-pound hybrid striped bass, 2.28-pound white bass, 12.40-pound channel catfish and 49.40-pound yellow catfish.

Fish consumption advisories for some species of fish that were established and later modified by Texas health officials remain on Lake Worth.

The recent big blue catfish catches likely are the result of the state’s last stockings of blue catfish in 1990, when 36,465 fingerlings were stocked there. The lake also has a good population of largemouth bass, which likely will flourish with the 2011 stockings of 173,982 fingerling Florida bass.

As for the Fergusons, it’s time to move on to other possible records. “We are going to start targeting Eagle Mountain Lake record for blue catfish,” Chad Ferguson said, “and this is one of the best time of the year to catch big catfish.”

Their target: a 45.56-pound Eagle Mountain Lake record blue catfish caught on April 30, 2011, by Doug Bailey.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/04/3712267/monster-catfish-no-match-for-fort.html