How To: Lake Hogue - Harrison McCall #15

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Lake Hogue is a small shallow lake that holds a ton of small fish. It is easy to fish and hard to have a bad day of fishing. The water depth averages from 4-6 feet and most of the stump cover and trees have worn away over time. The crappie are mainly 7-9 inches, but there are few that are 13-16 inches. We only fish lake Hogue for crappie and we do that two different ways. One way is spider rigging with jigs and minnows over a few key spots and middle of the lake. We also cast and retrieve soft plastic jigs (black and chartreuse or blue and chartreuse) and small fire tiger lipless crankbaits in the same areas. Key points are a few different trenches that run through the lake that are 8-10 foot deep, as well as a really big trench that runs around the outside of the entire lake. In the big trench, there is a large 20-30 foot hole on the back right side of the lake.  The bass tend to hold up closer to the shallows of the bank. People usually fish these spots with topwater walking baits or spinners, crankbaits, and other moving baits. People also work the rocks under the dock with cranks or try and finesse it with soft plastics. During the spawn, the bass are usually on the shallow, left corner of the lake near the buckbrush. Lake Hogue is also good for bream. During the right time of the year, one can use crickets and jig poles and tear up some shell crackers. However, the bream do travel out into the shallower patches in the middle of the lake. Overall the best fishing is anywhere on the lake because it is so small, but we tend to stick towards the middle of the lake. If there is a decent wind we usually go to the left side of the lake and drift through the middle.