The flats just out from the Diablo East boat ramp should never be overlooked, especially in March. Spinnerbaits and topwater lures work well there, as do Carolina rigs on short leaders.

APRIL
Crappie -- Ray Roberts
April is a great month to fish for crappie on most Texas lakes, but Dallas/Fort Worth anglers are fortunate that one of the state's premier crappie fisheries is close to their homes. Ray Roberts has been a great crappie lake ever since it opened in 1987.

The lake has lots of timber on its upper reaches, plus numerous large logpiles that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed when it built the lake. Crappie can be caught from these brushpiles, as well as in the stumps atop stock-tank dams and along submerged roadbeds and creeks.

Crappie often group together in large numbers. At Ray Roberts, it's not unusual for two or three anglers to catch limits in two to three hours.

A variety of crappie jigs work well on the crappie at Ray Roberts, but black and blue are my favorite colors. Many anglers prefer minnows, but jigs perennially outproduce live bait when the fish are active.

MAY
White Bass -- Richland-Chambers
Whenever my longtime friend and Richland-Chambers fishing guide Bob Holmes calls me to announce that the white bass are hitting, I drop whatever I'm doing and head for the big lake south of Corsicana. And if he reports that they're hitting on top, I get revved up even more!

Most of the top catches of white bass are caught between the U.S. Highway 287 bridge and the dam, especially around an area known as the 409 Flats. On my last trip there, however, Holmes took me to a school of fish that had been surfacing every morning for more than a week in the woods near Hickey Island north of the 287 bridge. The shad that the white bass were after were small, so we used clear Heddon Torpedoes to catch one fish after another, sometimes two at a time, for more than two hours.

Richland-Chambers also has a good supply of hybrid striped bass. At times the hybrids will be mixed in with the white bass, but generally it's all sand bass action when large numbers of fish are being caught.

During May, you can find schools of white bass by watching for feeding gulls and herons. If the white bass are deep, Slabs and other jigging spoons are hard to beat, as are Sassy Shads.

JUNE
Bream -- Farm Ponds
Give me a telescoping fiberglass pole, a can of worms and a few cricket hooks, and I'll be a happy camper. Maybe it has something to do with catching bream as a young boy, or with the sweet, succulent taste of a deep-fried one; maybe both. Regardless, bream are fun to catch, and just as much fun to eat. And if you want a lot of action, most farm ponds have plenty of them to give you that. There are many varieties, but my favorites are bluegills, redears, yellow sunfish and coppernose bluegills.

You can catch them on just about any type of fishing gear from spinning and spincasting to baitcasting and from a fiberglass or cane pole to even a willow limb. My favorite outfit is a 10-foot telescoping pole with a slip-cork, split shot and cricket hook. I like the cricket hook because it has a long shank for easy hook removal. A wire fish basket or an ice chest will be handy for holding fish. The only other thing I need besides a can of earthworms is a pair of needlenose pliers -- in case a fish takes the hook deep -- and a towel to wipe my hands on.