Cross Lake, 03/11/23

[J.W.]

Boated my son for his NLJFL tournament on Cross Saturday. Water temps low 60s, water was pretty stained. Overcast, cool, and damp weather. Enough wind to make the lake a little rough, but not quite whitecapping.

He had to fish by himself, his partner was out of town. We had pre fished some, catching them mostly on cypress trees on the west end from Flemming down towards 40 & 8 the week prior, but the water temp then was over 70. Once the weather changed, water temps dropped to the low 60s and that bite seemed to drop off. Not 100% sure if it was the weather or if they happened to be in the middle of the transition when they were relating to the trees and had since moved to beds.

Anyway, we shifted strategies and he ended up catching them in shallow grass on a wacky rig, probably on beds we couldn't see, in the backs of some pockets.

Their limit is three fish, and he ended up catching 5, letting him cull once. The fifth one didn't help him any. He ended up with a little over 7 lbs, which I consider great for three fish on Cross, especially with him fishing solo. I'll be the first to admit I'm not much good at putting them on fish on that lake. For me it lives up to its reputation of being the Dead Sea, but I also know there's always someone that pulls out a nice stringer there.

Anyhow, he ended up just outside the top ten on this one, but moved up in overall standings quite a bit. We needed those fish after getting skunked at Caddo last go-round, and I was kind of dreading Cross, so I'm glad we averted the potential disaster there.

We fish at D'Arbonne this coming Saturday for the TBF Juniors Louisiana tournament. Never been to that lake before, so it'll be interesting.

[Donald Garner]

Congrats on the catching there.  Best wishes for him on the rest of this year tournament schedule.

[BassmanRudy]

Nice job!! Glad y'all were able to figure em out and have a limit.

Sent you a pm

[Mike Cork]

Congrats, Cross can be a tough puzzle to put together!!! Thanks for the report and good luck on D' ArBonne

[manoduk]

Fished Cross all my my life and I'm 74 so that's a long time. Seems weather change can effect that lake like no other.  It can be tough.