Baker's Branch

  I was upriver a few weeks back, the Cimarron River, fishing for striped bass with Leon Mears of Mannford. We found them, and caught them on swimbaits, in all the regular places you would expect at this time of the year. Leon has been catching them in those places for years.  For me, there were several interesting features to the trip, not least of which was the water temperature. In one spot it was 49.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Both stripers and sand bass spawn in water at, or near, 55 degrees, and, remember, I said we there several weeks ago. That would be January, and several of the female bass I cleaned that night had eggs, and one male a fully developed sperm sac.  No matter the date on the calendar, the fish were obviously taking their cue from the temperature of the water; probably from the amount of daylight available in the sky, and who knows what else. Like I said, to me it was interesting, and very instructive as to where to go when to catch fish in Lake Keystone. ...

  Lake Keystone’s water clarity at this writing is as good as I’ve seen it since before last May’s floods. It’s as good as it gets all the way to the dam, and the fishing it provides shows it. Stripers, catfish, sand bass , and crappie are definitely coming on strong, with the first two species mentioned actually leading the charge ahead of the sandies and crappie. That’s a little different than what we expect in this country, somewhat the reverse order, but that could easily change this week with predicted warmer air temperatures.   Some of us have been jug lining  both major arms of the lake, baiting up with live shad, and bringing in some nice blue cats up to thirty-five pounds out of that blue water. Where’s the frying pan? Got grease?   Jack Test and his boys of Guymon, drove down to my place for dinner the other night, and a wild two day outing on the Cimarron Arm of the lake. Jack, his son Bryon, and grandsons J.B. and Jacob, and friend Jim Mattocks, lined out...