Dalton Smith remembers the dreary December day in 2022 when he discovered just how special O.H. Ivie Lake is.
Fishing with a friend on the reservoir in west-central Texas, he caught the fish of a lifetime – a 14.59-pound Florida strain largemouth bass. That in itself was reason to celebrate. But after taking a lunch break, Smith landed a second bass weighing more than 14 pounds.
Two giants…in one day.
“It was overcast and rainy, and those bass were just roaming the river channel, feeding on shad,” Smith told Wired2Fish. “I saw them on my forward-facing sonar, and I got both of them to hit a swimbait.
“I doubt if I will ever have another day like that.”
About the photo: Dalton Smith, a guide on O.H. Ivie Lake in Texas, posed with a heavyweight bass he caught. He later released his catch. Courtesy of Dalton Smith.
But at O.H. Ivie Lake, one of the top trophy bass lakes in the country, anything is possible. Smith, who guides on the lake, is a believer.
No one bats an eye when someone catches a 10-pound bass at the Texas reservoir. There are bigger fish out there, and guides work year-round to put clients on their personal-best bass.
The lake record is 17.06 pounds, caught in February of 2022 by Brodey Davis. But guides and big-bass hunters are convinced there are bigger fish hiding in the almost-impenetrable cover.
“I think there are huge bass in here that will never be caught,” said Brady Stanford, who also guides on Ivie. “The cover is so thick that there are places on this lake that fishermen just can’t get to. I hope I’m on the water when one of those big ones makes a mistake.”
Catching one of those 10-pound-plus bass doesn’t happen every day, Even with forward-facing sonar, guides can find the big ones, but it’ s one of those “right time, right place” type of situations to get them to hit.
Still, at O.H. Ivie, fishermen know the opportunity is always there. Anglers travel great distances to hire guides that charge $1,000 or more per day during prime time (January through May). They’re looking for that one big bite.
“We’ll see 5- to 8-pounders on forward-facing sonar, but we won’t even cast to them,” Stanford said. “From January through March, we’re looking for 13-pound-plus fish.
“Even when we find them, there’s some luck involved getting them to hit. A lot of times, they’ll just follow a bait. You have to do something different to get them fired up.”
Recipe for Growing Giants
So, what makes Ivie special? It starts with the massive boom-bust fluctuations in water levels.
O.H. Ivie sits in an arid, desert-like region that averages only 10 to 15 inches of rain a year. The lake basin covers almost 20,000 acres at conservation pool. But that mark is only a mirage. Because of years of continual drought, the water level is usually far below what is considered “normal.”
But that’s actually a key factor in the O.H. Ivie’s success. Once a big rain year replenishes the lake’s basin, it floods thousands of acres of salt cedar and mesquite trees that had grown along the dry shorelines.
“From the fall of 2018 to July of 2019, the lake came up 35 vertical feet,” said Lynn Wright, regional fisheries supervisor for the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife. “It came up from only 4,000 acres of water when we were in a drought to over 15,000 acres with the rain we got.
“It was a textbook example of a new-lake effect.”
Another factor is the excellent genetics of the bass living in O.H. Ivie. Parks and Wildlife has stocked Florida-strain bass there for years. In addition, bass produced via the Texas Toyota ShareLunker program has added to that genetic quality. In that program, anglers who voluntarily lend their catch of 13 pounds and larger to the fisheries department so that the bass can be spawned in a controlled setting in a hatchery. Fingerlings, along with the donated fish, are then released back to the water they came from.
Bass caught from January through the end of March are eligible for that program, and Ivie has consistently been one of the leaders in Texas for fish received.
Other factors include plenty of forage in the form of gizzard and threadfin shad, a strong catch-and-release ethic and the lake’s remote location.
“We’ll get fishing pressure in the spring,” Wright said. “But in the summer, there are times when there are only a few boats on the lake. Our guides will still put people on bass during July and August, but it seems that people don’t want to get out when it’s hot.”
O.H. Ivie’s Fact Sheet
- Location: West-central Texas, 55 miles east of San Angelo.
- Size: 19,149 acres at conservation pool. But it is seldom at full pool due to lack of precipitation.
- Features: Located in a desert-type region where salt cedar and mesquite trees are common. That cover grows along shorelines during drought years and is flooded when heavy rain returns to the area. That creates thousands of acres of ideal bass habitat.
- Management: Ivie is was formed by damming a section of the Colorado River. It is owned and operated by the Colorado River Municipal Water District for water supply and recreational purposes. The fishery is managed by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
- Age: Impoundment started in 1990.
- Gamefish fame: Known as one of the top trophy-bass lakes in the nation. With its abundance of Florida-strain largemouth and acres of ideal habitat, it is a factory for double-digit size bass. Ivie also has a good population of big crappie and catfish, but those species are definitely on the undercard at Ivie.
- What’s with the name? Named after the general manager of the water district that constructed the reservoir.
How and Where to Catch Them
Some lakes have well-known hot spots that produce better fishing than others. Not O.H. Ivie. Worthy and many guides keep a straight face when they say that giant bass can be caught from one end of the lake the other.
A lot of that has to do with the heavy cover. If you’re not afraid to get your boat scratched up and you’re willing to fight your way through the flooded brush and timber, you can find bass.
The best time to go? Smith likes February through June — basically different phases of the spawn.
“April is my favorite month,” he told Wired2fish. “We’re strictly bed fishing then. I love to sight fish on flat, calm days and pitch a 5 ½-inch 6th Sense Panorama Live Crappie swimbait onto a (spawning) bed. It looks like a little crappie moving in to eat their eggs and they can’t stand it.”
Smith, who is sponsored by 6th Sense, also will drag a 6-inch keel-weighted Whale or a Bodega craw bait through the beds.
Stanford likes to use a shaky head or drop shot rig with a plastic bait and watch on forward-facing sonar to see how they react.
The spawning beds aren’t always as shallow as some anglers might expect. Stanford has seen the cleared-out circles as deep as 20 feet on his sonar.
Post-spawn, Stanford often will use a large swimbait on a heavy jig head to cast to schooling bass. Once the heat sets in, he often will go to a large plastic worm and just drag it on the bottom.
What You Need to Know
- Boat ramps: Ivie has three public ramps – Elm Creek on the lower end, Concho Park on the upper end and Padgett Park on the northeast side.
- Lodging and dining: Elm Creek Marina offers 30 motel rooms and an RV Park. It serves breakfast and lunch and has a store that sells everything from bait to groceries. Concho Park Marina also offers lodging, a campground and serves breakfast and lunch. For dinner, anglers have to drive to a nearby town.
- Shopping/Entertainment: San Angelo, the nearest big city, is about an hour west of Ivie.
The Future
Wright is cautiously optimistic about the near future on O.H. Ivie Lake.
Thanks to heavy rain last fall and again this spring, the lake level is up 15 feet in the last year. That has expanded the reservoir significantly, Wright said.
“That’s not as big a rise as what we experienced before, but it has definitely added more habitat,” Wright said. “I think we should see good fishing for at least the next couple of years.”
