At R-C, battles with the occasional pure striper that's come down the watershed from lakes Navarro Mills and Bardwell, both stocked with stripers several years ago, are hardly unheard of. Most of the fish were carried downstream into R-C during spring flooding.

Regardless of whether it's stripers or hybrids that you're targeting, head down to the 309 Flats out from the dam, tie on a 1- to 2-ounce slab or 4-inch Sassy Shad and work the baits close to bottom under the hordes of schooling white bass.

LAKE BRIDGEPORT
Since 1995, close to 1 million hybrid striper fingerlings have been stocked at Bridgeport. Fish in the 4- to 6-pound range are the norm, but enough double-digit fish are caught to keep the fishing interesting.

Last June, I enjoyed a red-hot morning of hybrid striper action here with guide Dennis Bolton. The tactics that worked for me last summer should help get your line stretched this month.

We landed all the fish from one anchorage off Rattle Snake Island. It was along a sandbar that, topping out at 6 feet below the surface, was surrounded by water 28 to 20 feet deep. Bolton uses a combination of live shad, cut shad and artificials such as lead slabs or soft-plastic shad bodies on jigheads to take the majority of his stripers.

When the fish are very active, usually in May after their "false spawn," topwater plugs such as big Pencil Poppers or Zara Spooks will draw strikes. We were baiting up with live shad about 3 inches long and chumming the area with pieces of fresh-cut shad.

"Chumming is a highly effective method of putting lethargic hybrids in the feeding mode," Bolton told me. "There's something about the scent of the fresh blood and oil in the water that really turns the fish on."

There's also something about the darting of a fresh and lively shad that elicits vicious strikes. Soon our live baits were being attacked by roving packs of hybrids that moved in to feed on bits of cut bait. Later, back at the cleaning station, it was obvious that the chumming had helped incite the action, as most of the fish we cleaned contained pieces of cut shad.

LAKE PROCTOR
Lake Proctor has definitely rebounded from the mid-1990s flood that took many of the lake's hybrids over the spillway. My last trip there with guide Billy Tyus produced fast action with hybrids in the 4- to 6-pound range. Tyus reports that his clients regularly mix it up with fish in the 6- to 10-pound range.

A couple of throws of the net, and Tyus had caught enough 4- to 6-inch gizzard shad to fill the bait tank. "Here's one reason for the awesome hybrid fishing this lake offers," Tyus commented as he dumped a heavy net full of shad into the tank. The game fish in the lake obviously have a ready source of protein in the zillions of shad frequenting the backwaters of the coves. And the regular stocking of almost a half-million fingerling hybrids since 1995 has obviously contributed to Proctor's rating as a topnotch hybrid hole.

As we motored slowly away from the dock, Tyus broke out his map and pointed to the confluence of the Savanna and Leon Rivers. "When the engineers decided to construct Proctor, they were indecisive as to which of the rivers to dam," Tyus said. "Some wanted to dam only the Leon River and let the Savanna discharge into the Leon somewhere above the lake. The decision was finally made to position the dam below the confluence of both rivers.

"The submerged confluence of the two rivers is situated near midlake today, and the four submerged ledges created by the two streambeds created ideal structure to hold not only big schools of shad during the summer months, but roving schools of hybrid stripers as well."