Cold weather has deer on the move, more ducks arriving with fronts

Lumberton’s Phil Brannan is not only a world-famous carver of wooden fish, but he’s also in the hunt for big bass every day all day. And right about now one of his favorite places to fish is on Falcon Lake down on the U.S./Mexico border.

Falcon Lake is definitely off the beaten path and is shared by the U.S. and Mexico, but the bass fishing is good, and right about now anglers fishing the coves with open water stickups are catching some solid largemouth bass.

Falcon Lake is located on the Rio Grande River in the South Texas counties of Zapata and Starr. The one thing that you’ll notice is all the water there is to fish, and not that much boat traffic, which is why this lake has some great bass fishing. Falcon is one of the largest lakes in Texas, covering just over 23,000 acres.

Brannan has been fishing on Falcon for years and says that right now it’s tough to beat a crank bait there.

“There are coves with lots of brush and that’s where you can catch some huge bass on cranks from right about now and on through January,” says Brannan. “One of my best days on Falcon was in the winter and I was fishing with John Hope. We kind of got sidetracked and went up the wrong cove. As John was idling through the brush towards the mouth of the cove I was fishing a DD-22 crank bait along the stickups. On my second cast I hooked up with a bass that looked to weigh an estimated 13 pounds. We ended up losing her at the boat.

“To make a long story short, we decided to fish that cove and lost a 9-pounder at the boat, then caught one around 8 pounds. We caught several more weighing 5 to 6 pounds. All were on red and black cranks fished 7 to 8 feet deep along the stick ups just off the bank. That’s about as good as bass fishing can get.”

Right now Falcon is just over 40 feet low, and the water is a little off color and 70 degrees. Some of the best fishing is over rocks at the dam in 10 to 15 feet of water.

“One of the best areas to fish right about now is at the dam,” says Brannan. “That’s where you have rocks and they are perfect for fishing cranks. What you want to do is position the boat in deep water and cast up to the rocks and work a crank bait down in about 7 feet of water. You might be surprised at the size of the bass that are feeding over the rocks.”

Brannan says that with the water temperature in the 70’s right now, you can use an assortment of lures in the coves and at the dam over the rocks.

“When I’m fishing on Falcon my lure of choice is a crank,” he says. You can cover lots of water, and since the bass are feeding on bream and shad a crankbait is one way to match the hatch. Other lures you might want to try are spinnerbaits and topwaters. A spinnerbait can be deadly on bass right now. That’s especially true when you fish them over and around stickups in the coves. There are lots of coves on this lake, some are good, others are so, so. Based on my experience once you find a cove that’s holding bass, you can fish it about the same time each year, and expect it to produce bass.”

Brannan says the water is stained right now, kind of like tea. And the lake level is low. But he adds that with the low water level you can find plenty of structure like rocks and brush to fish. His best advice is to tie on something like a Norman DD-22 crank and fish it all day long.