If you follow bass fishing you've probably heard about the hottest lake in Texas. Lake JB Thomas is an impoundment of the Colorado River and is located in the middle of nowhere. Synder and Colorado City, TX are the closest populated area. About the only thing out here is cactus, rocks, oil wells, and BIG bass.
The best way I can describe fishing this lake is if the planet Mars had water and huge largemouth bass. The lake is all rock, there is no vegetation in it, there is some brush and timber in a few areas though. Currently the lake is only around 20% capacity and is very low, at full pool its 7,820 surface acres, but it fishes much smaller than that. You don't burn a lot of gas, you just spend a lot of time on the trolling motor.
Something you'll notice from the photos is the water clarity, or lack thereof. Water clarity is around 2 inches at best. With this dirty water you really need to put the bait in fish's face. With water temps in the low to mid 40's the fish are suspended throughout the lower end of the lake. This is why the fishing is so good right now, these big females suspend feeding on Gizzard Shad and are easy to find with forward facing sonar. Everyone out there right now has their heads down staring at a screen. Whether you love it or hate it it is effective.
My advice for you if you are making a trip out to this lake is plan to stay two to three days. Despite the social media hype it's not an "easy" lake to fish. It takes a little while getting dialed in with where the fish are, what they look like on the sonar, how you need to present your bait, and what baits are getting bit. Something unique about this lake is that these fish (at least during this winter pattern) aren't relating as much to cover or "spots". These bass are not up in the brush or down in the rock piles. They are out over flats, around drop offs, or around channel edges following bait. Unlike a lot of other lakes, I saw very little Threadfin Shad in this lake, rather it's full of larger Gizzard Shad. These bigger cousins to the Threadfin are a much bigger meal and are a large part of why the fish in this lake are so big. The only downside to this is that when livescoping its not as easy picking out the sonar returns that are bass and the ones that are big shad. Another thing I found is that the lake also has a healthy population of crappie, I found a lot of crappie suspended out near the main lake... just another thing to decipher when starting at your fish finder screen.
If you want to cut the learning curve you can purchase my newest Honey Hole Report for Lake JB Thomas. In it I give you 5 areas we found and caught big bass as well as the EXACT baits that are working out there. Chances are it's not a bait you normally have tied on! I also included a picture of my graph annotated with what a big bass, crappie, and shad all look like on the sonar. Note: I have a garmin, your screen may look a little different from mine if you have active target or mega live, but it shouldn't be that much of a difference.
My biggest piece of advice for those of you going out there is make sure you are dialed in with your livescope. You need to be able to make accurate casts and track your bait on the screen. Being able to put your bait right on the bass versus just a few feet away is the biggest difference between catching and fishing. While my Honey Hole report will tell you all you need to know, as far as bait selection, think bright! With the brown muddy water out there baits that are bright chartreuse stand out the best.
While I don't guide this lake since its about 4.5 hours from my house, there are a couple really good guides out there. If you're interested in a recommendation shoot me a message through the contact form on the homepage of my website and I'll gladly pass along their info.
Good luck out there, and if you catch a giant and any of this helped, send me a picture! I'd love to share it on my social media.
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