How many acres is caney lake

Francis Medical Center, are less than 40 miles away. Caney Creek Reservoir is a forested body of water covering roughly 5, acres. The beautiful waters and towering trees make for majestic landscapes all about the lake.

The reservoir is home to six of Louisiana's Top 10 Largemouth Bass Records, each being over 15 pounds. It is well-recognized as the best bass fishery in the state. Anglers find the best bass fishing during spring and fall, but they reel them year-round along with walleye, crappie, and catfish. Many people come to Caney Lake to explore natural landscapes in kayaks, canoes, and other small watercraft.

In the wooded environment, you are likely to see wood ducks, loons, rabbits, foxes, deer, blue herons, or an eagle. Jimmie Davis State Park is the perfect place to get outdoors. It provides many lodging options with 17 cabins, two large lodges, and 73 campsites.

Boating, fishing, hiking, and biking are popular activities with the campers. Hook's Marina offers boating services and more. On one of their guided boat tours, you are sure to make a great catch and learn a lot along the way.

After the tour, enjoy a delicious cooked meal from the marina's restaurant. The marina is a fun place to be in the warmer months; at night, they host live music, karaoke, and serve food and beverages. Eventually, grass became so scarce that some property owners even reported carp gathering like frenzied sharks to slurp up yard clippings blown into the water as residents cut their lawns along the shore. The carp can't reproduce, but they live a long time.

In time, the fishing will return -- when carp numbers dwindle enough to allow grass to sprout again like it was. It will probably never be as good as it once was, but it'll still be a trophy lake. Officials tried to net carp and killed about 3, of them. Wildlife officials encouraged archers to patrol the lake and shoot as many carp as they could. Some groups even staged carp bowfishing tournaments. These measures helped. Other carp died as a result of accidents, predators or other natural causes, but thousands of carp remained.

The key is to watch the presentation and pay attention. Often, by the time people realize they had a bite, the fish has already let go. Even during the worst of the "carp epidemic," the lake still held enormous bass. As the carp population slowly declined, aquatic grasses sprouted in some coves again.

Fishing gradually improved. Then, in March , Kenneth Walker landed a The fish ranks 18th in the state book, making it the first top 20 bass from Caney since I know of one pounder that came out of Caney in , and we still get a lot of 10s and 11s.

Because of relatively infertile, acidic water, the lake remains very clear. Anglers need to find Caney bass before they can boat them, and most Caney bass suspend in open water over ledges, humps and dropoffs, making finding them tough. With so much open water and very little structure to concentrate bass, fish could hide anywhere in the 5,acre lake.

The lake averages about 14 feet deep, with some old borrow pits dropping to more than 40 feet. A few dredge holes near the dam hold more than 70 feet of water.

Many anglers fish the five major fingers that enter the lake from the northeast side. Two more major fingers enter the main lake from the southwest, offering anglers plenty of places to bag big bass. Without extensive grassbeds, many big bass stay away from the shorelines except during spawning season.

In the spring, though, anglers may find fish by combing the banks and flats looking for giant bedding fish. They sight-cast to spawning bass, dragging small jigs, lizards or other soft-plastic baits repeatedly through beds.

Some throw buzzbaits, spinnerbaits or jerkbaits to provoke fish into biting. An angler might throw at one single giant bass for several hours until it bites -- or the angler wears an arm out.

The real monsters are not going to come shallow where people can see them. A spawning bass on a bed doesn't eat, and may spook easily. However, it might pick up distracting objects and remove them from the nest. It might strike reactively at annoying objects that repeatedly wobble, buzz or sputter past its nose. Frequently, anglers stand off as far as they can cast from cover to avoid spooking fish when working a bed. If a person spooks a fish off a bed, it's a hard fish to catch until it returns to that bed.

To add more cover to Caney Lake, the state created several artificial reefs made of plastic pallets scattered throughout the lake. The biologists actually established these structures, which somewhat resemble Christmas trees, to attract crappies. Minnows and shad gather in the "branches" of these trees.

Crappies move in to feed on the minnows and other baitfish. Bass gather to feed on the minnows and bream that lurk near these reefs, but they also pick off a few crappies if they can catch them.

The state has anchored buoys that mark the reefs, so that anglers can find them easily. Besides fishing near artificial reefs or sight-casting at bedding bass, anglers primarily fish deep structure, such as creek channels, humps and dropoffs, especially in the winter or summer.

Points also make good places to look for bass at Caney Lake. Sloping points frequently give bass access to both deep and shallow water. As the mood strikes them, bass rise and descend in the water column to find the depth that offers them the best combination of cover, forage, oxygen and temperature comfort. To find big bass in creek channels or around other bottom contours, Chatham does what he calls "methodical fishing.

After finding fish, he slowly works over the area with soft plastics. My favorite colors for big soft plastics are junebug, redbug and any dark color. In cold water, I throw Texas rigs because I can work them slower, although sometimes I catch fish on Carolina rigs. Topwater baits can also work well from April through early fall. Fish the major creek channels from where they meet the main lake to about halfway up the creek.

Bass will mostly be on the inside or outside grass lines, relating to some sort of drain or depth change, Freeman said.

Fishing is good this time of year with a Carolina rig. It has two boat launches, 11 fishing piers and numerous amenities for fishermen. Despite a long drought of record-setting bass catches, Caney Lake still beats the competition when it comes to trophy largemouth bass from Louisiana waters. The Many anglers feel that if managed correctly the next couple of years, Caney anglers can put some new entries on this chart. Hunter Freeman is one of the growing numbers of young bass fishermen competing on professional circuits.

One day, you can go out and catch five fish weighing 35 pounds, and the next, you might not get a bite. Freeman is one of 11 Louisiana anglers who qualified to fish the FLW circuit in Become the most informed Sportsman you know, with a membership to the Louisiana Sportsman Magazine and LouisianaSportsman.

Stars are aligned to make November a great bassing month on Toledo Bend. He was 49 years old. You must be logged in to post a comment.