Lake Okhissa

(no message)

I remember that first year the lake was open, people were leaving that lake with literally ice chests full of fish and for some reason the wardens were telling people to keep every fish they caught. Then, fast forward a couple of years you can’t hardly catch a fish

quote:

---

people were leaving that lake with literally ice chests full of fish and for some reason the wardens were telling people to keep every fish they caught. Then, fast forward a couple of years you can’t hardly catch a fish

---

That's good advice for a lake that was stocked like that. You have to thin the herd or it gets overpopulated. Like someone else said they just didn't get it right with the forage base. The lake is very deep relatively, and there aren't a ton of spawning flats for bream. Not sure why the shad aren't producing either. Bill Dance may be a better bait salesman than a lake designer.

I live 6 miles from it and haven’t been in 3 years. I see a ton of shiny boats headed that way on weekends but don’t hear of many fish being caught. Last I heard the grass had gotten really bad. I know it was the last time I took my kids bream fishing.

That sounds like a good time.
I’d say at least half of the fishermen come from La to fish it. There are a few other options around such as Percy Quin and Calling Panther.
Okhissa is almost 80 ft deep at the dam. My wife’s uncle was the logging contractor on it when they built it. He’s told me that there are still large oak trees standing underwater near the dam.

Back before the geniuses at Bing decided they needed to change things up to look busy, therefore doing away with the "Bird's Eye View" imagery, you could see Lake Okhissa before it was completely full. There were multiple gravel beds visible, and the trees that were still in it were unbelievable in quantity and size.

I still have screenshots of it from years back on one of my computer hard drives because I'd heard Bing was phasing out the old imagery- which they did.

That bird's eye view was a fantastic resource for outdoorsmen- especially for correlating traditional satellite imagery with actual conditions on the ground regarding duck holes.

I miss it.

So I decided to go to Okhissa Sunday. Lake is beautiful, and has plenty of grass out deep. Caught a decent amount of fish out deep in 25-30 foot range. All bass from 2-3 pounds. I seen plenty of shad on graphs and every bass we caught out deep were real healthy looking. caught 1 fish up shallow that was skinny. Figuring it was a late spawner and hasn't recovered from the spawn yet. Will definitely be trying to go again soon.