A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 74F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 74F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.

Flathead catfish are heavily favored by passive fishermen using trotlines, jugs and stump hooks. The whiskered sport fish make great table fare.    (Photo by Matt Williams)

Baited holes concentrate channel and blue catfish to small areas so they can be more easily caught. Cattle range cubes (pictured here) or soured grain like milo or chicken scratch are good choices for igniting a feeding frenzy. (Photo by Matt Williams)

At 81, legendary Texas bass pro Tommy Martin is still going strong. In addition to tournament fishing and guiding, Martin maintains an Internet website built around current fishing reports, instructional videos and other educational content. (Photo courtesy of Tommy Martin)

Flathead catfish are heavily favored by passive fishermen using trotlines, jugs and stump hooks. The whiskered sport fish make great table fare.    (Photo by Matt Williams)

Baited holes concentrate channel and blue catfish to small areas so they can be more easily caught. Cattle range cubes (pictured here) or soured grain like milo or chicken scratch are good choices for igniting a feeding frenzy. (Photo by Matt Williams)

At 81, legendary Texas bass pro Tommy Martin is still going strong. In addition to tournament fishing and guiding, Martin maintains an Internet website built around current fishing reports, instructional videos and other educational content. (Photo courtesy of Tommy Martin)

Some fishermen are masterful storytellers. The smart ones are equally sharp when it comes to sifting through tackle shop trash talk and fairy tale fishing reports that sometimes circulate the Internet.

Tommy Martin is salty as they come. Martin is a veteran Toledo Bend/Sam Rayburn bass fishing guide with more than two dozen tournament titles under his belt, including a 1974 Bassmaster Classic victory on Wheeler Lake in Alabama. He’s been around block a time or two.

Years of experience have taught Martin that when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Especially when it comes to fishing stories.

Martin turns 82 this fall. Amazingly, he still competes in national and local tournaments and guides for pay on his home lakes. I sometimes call him the Energizer Bunny of pro fishing.

Martin isn’t a Facebook junkie, but he does have a presence on social media. He uses the platform to promote sponsors as well as his guide business. Plus, he maintains a website aimed at helping anglers catch more fish.

Fittingly called tommymartinfishingintel.com, the subscription-only site is built around weekly fishing reports, instructional videos and other educational content. Martin regularly updates the site with fresh goodies that some anglers love to gobble up, including useful bass and crappie fishing reports for Toledo Bend and Sam Rayburn.

The intel is gathered from area fishing guides and other sources Martin trusts to shoot him straight. His radar goes up when he sees reports floating around from anglers who claim they are slaying the fish when the bite is tough as nails for the biggest sticks on the lake.

“There are a lot of good reports out there, but there are also some that are very questionable,” Martin said. “Be careful what you believe.”

No argument, here. I’ve been compiling fishing reports for newspaper and magazine clients for three decades. The weekly report covers nearly a dozen of East Texas’ most popular lakes using information gathered from veteran fishing guides.

Martin has been sharing input for those reports for years. He’s among the best out there when it comes to offering useful information anglers can take to the lake to help make their next trip a successful one.

He doesn’t pull punches or bait fishermen with false promises just to get their money, either. He tells it like it is.

“If the fishing is slow, I tell always my clients right up front before they make the trip,” Martin said. “It’s just good business.”

Translation: Be wary of sources who never have anything bad to report. Fishing is never good all the time.

All sorts of pertinent information goes into building a meaningful fishing report. What follows is a summary of key ingredients along with explanations of some common terms or phrases used and how they might factor the scheme of things.

An old salt probably won’t get much of an education here, but a beginner might learn something:

Water Level:    Water level can tell you a lot about where the fish might be positioned, and which baits might work best. High water may allow fish to scatter in jungles of shore cover, which will naturally make them harder to find. High water also can mean muddy water. Additionally, it may create open running lanes above submerged vegetation for throwing moving baits like spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits and Rat-L-Traps.

Low water reduces the size of the playing field. It could push fish off the bank and concentrate them around the nearest cover, along channels, drop offs and other places where shallower water meets with deep. Low water usually means clear water.

Water Temperature: Late winter and early spring are when most anglers start watching their water temperature gauges. Warming water temperatures on the heels of a cold winter beckon bass and crappie towards the shallows to spawn. Water temperature also plays a role in triggering the white bass spawning run up major rivers. During summer, water temperature is just a grim reminder of how hot it is outside.

Cover: Cover refers to aquatic vegetation, brush, flooded bushes and other stuff big fish might use as shelter to hide from forage that swims dangerously close.

Structure: Structure refers to channels, drop offs, humps, points, ridges, shell beds or hard objects on a lake’s bottom that make it be different from the surrounding area.

Chop on the Surface: Chop is light wave action on the surface. Fishing is almost always best when there is some wind to rough up a slick surface.

Point: A point is an underwater finger of land that falls off into deeper water on both sides and at the tip. Some points originate on the bank, while others form far from shore. The best points will often have cover on them.

Hump: A hump is an underwater high spot away from the bank. Bait fish and sport fish like to gather along the edges or on top of humps.

Punch Bait: A prepared catfish bait that comes in a gallon tub or jar. Anglers frequently use a wooden spoon or stick to shove a hook into the bait. Baits of the right consistency will stick to the hook you pull it out, thus the name “punch bait.” Many punch baits get soft in the summer heat; keeping the bait on ice will help keep it firm.

Baited Hole: A place on a lake or river that has been pre-baited to attract and concentrate groups of catfish so they can be more easily caught on hook and line. Range cubes fed to livestock or soured grain work well. Baiting holes works best on channel and blue catfish. Flathead catfish feed almost exclusively on live bait.

Stump Hook: A single, heavy-duty line and hook attached to an exposed stump for the purpose of catching catfish. A weight is recommended to help hold live bait down in the water column. Stump hooks are super effective during fall, when water levels are low and stumps are exposed on channel edges.

Trotline: A single line with multiple hooks spaced at least three feet apart for catching catfish and nongame fish only. Freshwater trotlines are usually strung between two stumps or bushes. A single line may contain up 50 hooks, but shorter lines with fewer hooks will help cover more water. Identification tags are required. Catfish are the only game fish that can be caught on trotline and legally retained.

Channel Swing: A place where a creek or river channel makes a sharp turn. Channel bends are usually deeper on outside swings from years of washing out.

Cut Bait: Fish that are diced up into chunks for use as bait. Shad, bluegills and nongame fish like carp and buffalo make great cut bait for catching catfish. It is illegal to use any part of a game fish for bait.

Minnows: Minnows are readily sold by the dozen or pound at local bait shops for use as fish bait. Just about anything will munch a minnow. They are heavily favored for use by crappie fishermen.

Crank Bait: There are two types of crank baits — billed and lipless. Billed crank baits float when idle. They and have a lip or bill that protrudes off the chin to make the bait dive. There are shallow divers, medium divers and deep divers. Lipless crank baits like the Rat-L-Trap do not have a lip. They sink when idle and have a really tight wiggle on the retrieve. Crank baits are designed to simulate shad and other forage. They will catch any predator out there.

Fish are Suspended: Suspended fish are those that are positioned in the water column between the surface and bottom. Just about all game fish will suspend at one time or another. Oxygen content and sunlight are key factors that influence the depth at which forage and game fish will hold in the water column.

Creature Bait: Describes any number compact soft plastic baits ranging 3-5 inches in length. Most creatures are designed with multiple appendages to enhance the action.

Grass: When anglers mention grass, they are usually talking about hydrilla, milfoil, coontail or some other type of aquatic vegetation that roots to the bottom away from the bank. Grass may form mats on the surface during the summer months.

Pads: Another word for lily pads or any other type of water lily that roots in relatively shallow water. Some lilies have flowers, others don’t. Pads create shade and provide great cover for bass fishing, especially using frog style lures.

Forward Facing Sonar: FFS is an electronics technology that uses a special transducer to scan the water column around the boat. High-resolution imagery is relayed back to the electronics screen and displayed in real time. The detail is clear enough that you can actually see your bait and watch the fish chase it down from a considerable distance away. The technology will work when targeting all sorts of fish, especially crappie and bass. Forward sonar has had a big impact on the number of Legacy ShareLunkers caught at Lake O.H. Ivie in recent times. Many of those fish were suspended in the water column over water as deep as 40 feet.

Flipping: A bass fishing technique that involves making short range, vertical presentations with a heavy jig or compact creature bait. It works best around flooded bushes and matted hydrilla beds. The trick is to drop the bait straight down against the trunk of a willow or in a hole in the grass. Most reaction strikes occur as the bait is falling.

Strolling: Using the power of the trolling motor keep a lure moving slowly behind the boat. Bass anglers will sometimes long-line big bill crank baits over deep structure at the end of a really long cast. Crappie fishermen like to stroll jigs along the outside edges of grass lines.

Chatterbait: The bait that popularized bladed jigs. It’s built around a jig head and hook wrapped with a color-coordinated skirt. The head is fitted with flat blade that pivots back and forth, creating an erratic swimming action and intense vibration. A year-round producer that catches lot of big bass.

Flathead: Widely known as “Op,” the flathead catfish has a flat, wide head and is pale yellow to light brown in color with mottled skin. Flatheads are popular with passive fishermen and make great table fare. They prefer to feed on live bait. The Texas state record flathead is a 114 pounder caught at Lake Livingston in 1976.

Not all fishing stories are created equal, but the descriptive terms are always the same.

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.

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