Big Lake this past weekend
 

Friday evening we messed around a few spots with no luck. Got on a group of very fast moving birds, by the time we'd troll in they'd be to far away. After about 3-4 times of trying to catch them with the trolling motor, we changed it up. Since no other boats were around we would kamikaze right up to about 30 yards of them. We did this 4 times and tripled up every time with big reds. It was my first time ever to have bulls under birds. All reds were in the 32-34" range. We finally snagged on we thought was legal only to have him measure 29", our smallest one.
Saturday bounced around with no luck on the trout with artificials. Went behind the weirs and beat the banks. Four keeper reds all on assorted plastics. Several smaller throwbacks. Went back that evening and found birds in the same area we got into the reds the evening before. Birds were there, but only had undersized trout under them.
Got heavily into the blue cans and didn't worry about getting up Sunday morning. By the time we did get up the storms were pretty heavy on the south end and the water looked rough from the camp so we called it a day and headed home.

How do you tell what areas behind the weirs are Miami corp land requiring a tag?

Thanks for report.
I am curious about the area behind the weirs also.
With a T-top, is there anywhere one could get back there?

Not for the Public to use.

noted. thanks for info.

on the main bayous and canals...The adjoining land owners to the NWR make it abundantly clear! Plenty of signs / pilings.

Frankly, I find the better fishing to be closer to the levee anyway. The further back I go, the less water exchange there seems to be...water gets stagnant and gar filled.

The only signs I saw were saying NWR. No other signs that I remember.

Nice job on the reds though. Those reds do that every summer... all summer. For those wanting a crash course on how to do it every day... go with Bret or Kirk Stansel with HackBerry Rod and Gun... or any of their guides (but tell them that's what you want to do specifically.) Well worth a trip with them to learn this technique for sure. (It's not just working the birds... everyone know how to do that.. this is different and you can catch those 'over's' all day working that technique if you can learn it).

Ain't no science behind it and same way we do it with sacaulait. Catch fish in the school then throw em back in with the hook still in its mouth and a cork attached to it so when he goes back to the schoolyou can follow them around