This report covers 4/7/2014 and 4/10/2014. First off Lake Ballinger is not my favorite lake in the county but it is one of the open all year lakes near my house and is within a stones trow or so of my fathers house. I kind of like to be close to my dads place in-case he needs some help.

Monday. Noon to 4pm Temp was in the 70's with light wind at times. First fresh water boat trip of 2014 and once again we break the boat in on Ballinger. Why? Read that first paragraph. Second reason, friend with injured back insisted on being a rebel and defying doctors orders.

First 40 minutes or so involves semi randomly wandering the lake. No depth finder because once again the damned thing hates us. No clue on depths and/or fish. No big friend will find them. Water conditions aren't that clear for the most part. The lovely copper mud color with visibility of virtually little or none is the case of the day. Bait is Chartreuse and/or Rainbow colored Power bait with worm. Pop gear and trolling. As I said the first 40 minutes is random wandering the whole way around the lake. Not one single hit. It's a repeat of 2013 for all intents and purpose.

Finally we decide to hit and more or less stay on the south side of the lake as it appears far more promising than the north end. My rod finally reacts and I catch a 12 inch Cutthroat Trout. Fish is released. Friend would catch then follow on the next 2 passes with 2 nice size Rainbows. All fish released unharmed. A few other boats on the lake all said it was slow.

Thursday: I'm skipping my Tuesday trip because nothing happened. Thursday. Stuck on shore. Couple people on the dock and several others on the shoreline. They say its' been slow but I notice one person I've seen many times and he has a tendency to very well. He did catch one. I wasn't at the lake long as I had other things to do. This time I had one opportunity to catch and failed. 1 hit and swim away. Bait was Power bait - Rainbow color.

Upon leaving I overheard somebody comment on how much bigger the fish at Greenlake were.

kingroobes

4/11/2014 1:28:00 PM

If you look under "lakes" and go to "lake maps" there is a pretty good map of ballinger. It shows good areas for trout and general depths. But I would agree, the southern end tends to be better.

Gonefishing

4/11/2014 9:41:00 PM

My friend and I have fished this lake plenty of times over the past year on his boat. He more so that me. He is usually very good at finding the fish. Our depth finder decided to go on strike but I have a notebook where I have written depths at various areas so we weren't totally blind. Also had notes on locations of downed trees etc. I myself have done very very well on the backside of the island near the green house with the dock near the bench. But normally it's been lights out for us on that south side all the way across. Monday it was basically a smaller area from the downed trees on the golf course side to the second dock on that end.

As I may have noted the water was that copper mud color. But if you go near the launch area in the spot where the fly fisherman play the water is pretty clear.

We saw a bunch of trout surfacing on the north end. I dragged a fly around in that area and no go.

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