Trophy largemouth and Alabama spotted bass on a 2,880-acre canyon reservoir. Seasonal patterns, key areas and how to fish it below pool.
Lake Alan Henry is 2,880 acres of steep, rocky canyon reservoir in Garza County, and it produces bass that do not belong in this part of Texas. The lake record stands at 15.00 pounds, and it has given up ShareLunker-class largemouth. Guide Phillip Pool has confirmed more than 65 fish over 10 pounds in 20 years of guiding here.
It fishes like a canyon lake because it is one. Maximum depth runs to about 100 feet, banks fall away hard, and rock is the dominant cover. There is flooded timber in the creek arms and up the lake, but the backbone of the fishery is rock: long tapering points, channel swings, and the places where the old channel bends in tight against a point. Alabama spotted bass share the water with the largemouth and stack up in the deepest end of the lake near the dam.
Clarity runs roughly 1 to 4 feet and moves around a lot. It goes murky after wind and weather and cleans up to moderately clear when conditions stay stable for a stretch. Plan on checking it rather than assuming it, because your color choices and how far a fish will move to a bait both change with it.
Right now the lake is sitting well below conservation pool and it has been falling steadily over the past year. That single fact should shape your day more than anything else on this page, because a good chunk of what you would fish at full pool is dry rock and dry brush at the moment.
On a canyon reservoir, low water is not the disaster it is on a shallow flatland lake. The structure that matters here is geology, not shoreline cover, and geology does not go away. What happens instead is that everything slides down and out. The bass that would sit on a secondary point in the back of a creek slide to the primary point at the mouth of it. Fish that would hold on a timber edge in eight feet drop out to the first channel swing that still has that depth over it. The creek channel, the bends, the rocky point tips and the island saddles all still hold fish, they are just deeper contours now than they were on your old waypoints.
Two working rules make this survivable without a big electronics package. First, treat every waypoint as an approximate depth, not an approximate spot: if you had fish on a point in 10 feet last year, find 10 feet on that same point today and it will be further out toward the channel. Second, fish the steepest available rock. When the lake drops, the spots that keep producing are the ones where deep water is close enough that a bass never has to commit to a long move.
The reverse is worth knowing too, because these things turn around. When Alan Henry starts rising, the fish move up with the new water rather than sitting on the old contour. Brush and grass that have been high and dry for a season get flooded, and bass will push into it hard and eat shallow. Every foot the lake comes up, look further back into the timber coves and the backs of the creek arms before you commit to the deep pattern.
Most Texas anglers write off February. At Alan Henry it is documented as one of the best months of the year. Guide Norman Clayton has reported big females prowling even with water temps in the low 50s. The pre-spawn window runs February into March with water in the 46 to 58 degree range, and the fish are catchable in 8 to 20 feet.
Fish it midday and fish south-facing banks. That is not a throwaway detail on a canyon lake: those rock walls take direct sun for the warmest hours and the surface layer against them can be a couple of degrees ahead of the rest of the lake, which is all it takes in February.
The primary bait is a 3/4 ounce green pumpkin football head jig with a 3-inch crawdad trailer, dragged along creek channel ledges in 10 to 20 feet. Heavy for a reason: you want it on the bottom, in contact with rock, moving slowly enough that a cold female will pick it up. Behind it, run a shaky head with a 10-inch worm on rocky points in 8 to 20 feet, and on the warmer midday stretches of clean water, work a Megabass Vision 110 in ghost minnow or chartreuse shad along those sunny banks. The Gobbler Creek arm is the destination for this pattern, with its flooded timber and channel swings.
Two things about the Alan Henry spawn will trip up an angler used to fishing East Texas. The first is depth. Beds here form in 8 to 20 feet, far deeper than most Texas lakes, because the water is relatively clear and the bank is steep. If you are running the shoreline looking for beds in three feet, you are fishing above them.
The second is duration. The spawn runs late April into June, and in cold years it stretches out badly. Guides have reported all three spawn stages happening at once on May 22. That means in a given week in May you may be dealing with staging fish, bedding fish and post-spawn fish on the same trip, and the correct answer is to carry baits for all three rather than committing to one.
Spotted bass go first at 60 to 65 degrees, largemouth follow at 65 to 70. A 5-inch green pumpkin Senko on a wacky rig dropped into that 8 to 20 foot spawn zone is the workhorse, because it falls slowly enough to stay in a deep bed fish's window. For pre-spawn fish still staged in the creek arms, a 3/8 ounce spinnerbait with a large Colorado blade slow-rolled through 3 to 8 feet gives them something to find in stained water. A 3/8 ounce swim jig in white or green pumpkin chartreuse covers the timber edges on the way in.
Up-lake, the flooded timber coves are the place to work both sides of this. Swim a bait along the outside edges to find the fish using the timber as a highway, then flip inside for the ones that have set up.
Phillip Pool's summer summary is that the fish live anywhere from 2 to 25 feet, and the way you cover that range is by clock. Early, when the shad are up and getting hammered, throw a Whopper Plopper 130 in ghost or white shad and pull it steady. No pauses. The whole appeal of that bait to a shad-feeding bass is the constant, mechanical commotion, and stopping it kills the illusion.
Around 10 AM the surface bite dies and you go down. The 3/4 ounce green pumpkin football head jig with a crawdad trailer comes back out for 15 to 25 foot ledges. Mid-morning, in between, a 5-inch Senko in watermelon red on point edges in 4 to 12 feet keeps you catching while the fish reposition.
Water runs 72 to 88 degrees in July and August. The best surface feeding of the summer comes on full moon nights, when the shad spawn peaks and bass push them up. If you can fish a night, fish that one.
Fall is the trophy season at Alan Henry. The biggest fish of the year come in September and October, and guides regularly put 10-pound-plus fish in the boat during that window. Water cools from the low 70s toward 60 degrees and the bass work between 8 and 30 feet.
The 3/4 ounce green pumpkin football head jig is the number one producer, dragged on ledges in 15 to 30 feet. It is the same bait that works in February and after 10 AM in summer, which tells you something about this lake: heavy, bottom-contact rock fishing catches the big ones here in most of the calendar.
The fall fish school up deep, and this is the one part of the year where forward-facing sonar genuinely changes the outcome. With it you can find the schools in 20 to 30 feet, pick out the largest fish in the group and put a bait in front of that specific one. Without it, you are grinding the same 15 to 30 foot ledges with the jig and letting the fish tell you where they are, which still works, it just takes more casts. Points with the channel swinging in tight are where to spend that time.
Later in the fall, October into November, a square-bill crankbait in chartreuse shad or crawfish crawled slowly through brush in 3 to 8 feet gets bit. Slow is the operative word: you want it deflecting off wood, not swimming past it.
Pool describes winter fish here as piling up in schools, which is exactly how a deep canyon lake behaves once the water hits 42 to 56 degrees. Find one group and you may find a hundred fish in an area the size of a boat.
The local answer is a 1/2 ounce chrome Rat-a-Tat spoon vertically jigged over schools in 15 to 30 feet, often paired with a 3/8 ounce white or green pumpkin swim jig for the fish that will not commit to something dropping straight down. On stable barometer days the football jig still works on deep rocky structure in 15 to 25 feet. A Carolina rig with a blue fleck worm on deep transitions in 15 to 25 feet is another way to cover the same water at a walking pace.
After a front, on those bright bluebird days, tighten up. Fish get pinned to the steepest, deepest rock structure available and will not chase. That is the day to fish vertically and to fish slowly, and it is the day the spoon earns its keep.
If there is one piece of local knowledge worth carrying to Alan Henry, it is a blue fleck or dark blue worm on a shaky head. It shows up in the pre-spawn pattern on rocky secondary points in 6 to 15 feet, in summer on rocky points in 8 to 15 feet, and again in winter on a Carolina rig in deeper water. Local anglers keep going back to it in water that runs 1 to 4 feet of visibility over rock, and it is not the color most visitors pull out of the box first.
Fish it on a 3/16 ounce shaky head with a 6-inch trick worm for the everyday version, or step up to a 10-inch worm in the pre-spawn when you are hunting a big female. Either way, drag it. On rock, the bites come from bottom contact.
With the lake down off pool, treat all of these as depth zones rather than shoreline positions. The island saddles in particular change character fast as water comes and goes, so look for the hard bottom in the 6 to 10 foot range wherever that range currently sits.
This is an isolated lake and a small one at 2,880 acres, so you can cover it. If you have one day, pick the season pattern and commit. In February and again in September and October, that means a heavy football jig on rock and channel ledges in 10 to 30 feet, and the willingness to fish slowly for fewer, bigger bites. In summer, be on the water at first light with a topwater and have the jig ready for when the sun gets up. In May, carry pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn baits, because you may see all three stages before lunch.
The lake operates under standard TPWD regulations. The City of Lubbock is the controlling authority; the lake office is at 3096 Lake Alan Henry Rd, Justiceburg, TX 79330, phone (806) 629-4430, and with the level down it is worth a call before you tow to confirm current access conditions.
15.00 pounds. The lake is a ShareLunker producer, and guide Phillip Pool has confirmed more than 65 fish over 10 pounds across 20 years of guiding there.
September and October produce the biggest fish of the year, with 10-pound-plus fish caught regularly. February is the other documented big-fish month; guide Norman Clayton has reported big females prowling in water in the low 50s.
Beds form in 8 to 20 feet here, much deeper than typical Texas lakes, because the water is relatively clear and the banks are steep canyon rock. If you are hunting beds in shallow water, you are looking above the fish.
Late April into June, and it stretches out in cold years. Guides have reported all three spawn stages happening at the same time on May 22. Spotted bass spawn at 60 to 65 degrees and largemouth at 65 to 70.
Alabama spotted bass concentrate near the dam, which is the deepest water on the lake and holds submerged bridge structure. Finesse and vertical presentations work best there, and the spots return to that deep structure quickly after the spawn.
A blue fleck or dark blue worm on a shaky head is the local color secret at Alan Henry. It works pre-spawn on rocky secondary points in 6 to 15 feet, through summer on rocky points in 8 to 15 feet, and on a Carolina rig on deep transitions in winter.
No, but fall is where it matters most. The bass school deep in 20 to 30 feet in September and October, and forward-facing sonar lets you find the school, identify the biggest fish in it and feed that one. Without it, grind the same 15 to 30 foot ledges with a 3/4 ounce football jig and let the fish show you where they are.
The lake is currently well below conservation pool and has been falling over the past year, so shoreline cover that holds fish at full pool is dry ground. Everything slides down and out: fish the primary points instead of the secondary ones, and find the depth range you used to catch them in rather than the old shoreline position. If the lake starts rising, reverse it and follow the fish back into freshly flooded brush and timber.
Visibility runs about 1 to 4 feet, from murky to moderately clear. It improves during stable stretches of weather and dirties up after wind, so check it before you commit to a color or a presentation speed.