Texas is a popular early-season stop for tournament trails, including the Bass Pro Tour. But you must go back to the league’s second-ever event to find the last time a major national tour visited Lake Conroe. That will change Jan. 30-Feb. 2, as Conroe will host B&W Trailer Hitches Stage 1 Presented by Power-Pole to kick off the tour’s seventh season.
The 2019 event was held slightly later – in mid-February of 2019 – and won by Edwin Evers. A lot has changed since then for both the tour and the fishery, which is expected to produce some giant bass to kick off the 2025 campaign.
Located an hour north of downtown Houston (the fourth-most populated city in America), Lake Conroe is a popular recreation lake that also serves as a water supplier for the metro area. Homes and docks line much of the lower section, and nearly all those docks are home to various watercraft. Thankfully, it’s much less busy during winter and early spring – prime times for bass fishing at Conroe.
Covering just over 20,000 acres, Conroe is smaller than many nationally known fisheries. It features no shortage of cover, though, be it manmade docks and seawalls or multiple types of aquatic vegetation. The northernmost section is fed by the San Jacinto River and bordered by the Sam Houston National Forest, keeping it undeveloped and wooded.
According to Texas tournament standout and five-time Major League Fishing winner Russell Cecil of nearby Willis, Texas, the entire lake has potential to produce.
“There’s a lot of different stuff to fish, from the grass in some of the creeks and then obviously all the manmade stuff like docks, riprap and seawalls and the marinas,” Cecil said. “The lake is an excellent offshore lake in the summertime, but the grass is a big player in the early spring to postspawn. There’s plenty of native grass in almost all the creeks and some good hydrilla in Caney Creek. I expect vegetation to be a big factor in this one, and it’ll make the lake fish bigger since there’s so much of it now.”
California’s Brent Ehrler has only fished Conroe a handful of times but may have the best résumé on the lake of anyone in the field. He finished third there in the 2017 Bassmaster Classic and fourth at the 2019 BPT stop. Ehrler believes that the lake’s multitude of options make it such a good tournament fishery.
“About two-thirds of the lake is completely developed, and there’s so much available cover that it can be hard to pinpoint the fish,” he said. “It’s completely covered with docks, seawalls and dredged-out canals that it can almost be hard to figure them out because there’s so many potential targets. The northern section is the same, but undeveloped and all rock, brush and trees. That’s not counting the marinas and offshore brushpiles; the lake has almost everything.”
Cecil said the 2019 Bass Pro Tour event occurred while Conroe was recovering from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The lake has bounced back since then, with vegetation becoming more prevalent.
“When I was a little kid, there was a ton of vegetation, and then it went away and was strong around 2008 before they eradicated the hydrilla,” he said. “Right now, it’s coming back. There’s more native grass than I’ve ever seen in my fishing lifetime, and the hydrilla is starting to come back, too.”
Niki Ragan-Harbison, a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department fisheries biologist who handles Lake Conroe and surrounding waters, confirmed the additional vegetation compared to 2019, even though it’s down slightly from the past few years.
“The total vegetation acreage is down a little from two years (ago) because of drought in 2023 and flooding in 2024, but it’s still expanding in some areas,” she said. “Hydrilla is mainly in the Caney Creek arm, but native emergent species are spread around the entire upper end of the lake and in the backs of some of the coves on the lower end. We don’t break them out by species, but native emergent grass includes water willow, torpedo grass and smartweed. Water celery, various pondweed species and coontail comprise most native submerged species.”
In local events last season, five-fish bags in the mid- to high-20s were the norm for winning weights, proving the caliber of fish in the lake. While the number of true giants seems to have dwindled from 15 years ago, it’s improving, according to Cecil.
“There’s still a lot of 7- to 10-pound bass in there – this place has got them,” he said. “You’re just not seeing the top-end fish, those fish around 13 pounds. It’s like the class is missing, but the lake is absolutely full of 3- to 5-pounders right now.”
Ragan-Harbison and her colleagues conduct various surveys on the lake, and while they don’t tell the whole story, they show glimpses of a healthy fishery.
“The last two surveys (2021 and 2023) had lower catch rates, especially the young-of-the-year class in 2023, but that probably has more to do with our random sites falling in the lower end, where there’s not as much habitat,” she said. “We don’t see too many of the bigger fish in our surveys no matter where the stations fall, but we saw a decent amount of legal-sized fish. Most fish in our latest survey were between 10 and 15 inches long, and the body condition was good.”
Ehrler hasn’t been to Conroe since the BPT event in 2019, but he knows what the lake is capable of.
“It’s known as a big-fish lake, and that time of year, we’re likely to see the biggest bass we’ll see all year,” he said. “It’s never been a numbers lake in my experience, but the chance to catch a huge one is always there.”
Some in the field have previous experience at Conroe via either the Bass Pro Tour, Bassmaster Classic or the Toyota Texas Bass Classic events held there, so many will know where to begin. And even if they weren’t in those fields, the BPT event and Classic featured plenty of live coverage, so Cecil doesn’t think there will be any secrets.
“These guys are smart and will do their research,” he said. “In that 2019 event, several guys caught fish around the bridge at Little Lake Creek fishing the pad stems, and it will have pad stems again. That place will be good again, but it’ll get a lot of pressure. There’s also a place they call ‘the jungle’ at the north end with a very healthy fish population, but it can get covered up and pressured pretty fast.”
According to Cecil, another potential community hole will be Caney Creek.
“Everyone is going to check (Caney),” he said. “Some big fish came from there the last time these guys were here, and I expect that if it’s going well, a big portion of the anglers will be there the first day. Another popular area will be the Wildwood Shores neighborhood. It has a bunch of canals and docks and warms up the fastest in the spring because of how shallow it is.”
With several forage species swimming in Lake Conroe, a host of shad and panfish imitating baits should work. Ragan-Harbison says there is plenty for the bass to eat right now.
“Threadfin shad is the primary forage species in Lake Conroe, followed by bluegill, then gizzard shad and then longear sunfish,” she said. “Currently, Conroe has phenomenal shad and sunfish populations.”
Ehrler expects many different techniques to be a factor. Nothing should be off the table at this event.
“Dude, you name it – you can catch them on just about anything that lake and that time of year,” he said. “You can crank or throw a ChatterBait or jerkbait there, but you can also fish a shaky head or drop-shot. There will also be guys throwing a jig and Carolina rig and catching fish.”
Ehrler expects forward-facing sonar to play a factor, but the new rules limiting its use to just one period each day should mitigate its impact.
“I’m sure guys will catch them with LiveScope, and it’s never really been a factor here because all of the other tournaments were before we all had it,” Ehrler said. “I know it won’t be won solely with forward-facing sonar because we’re now limited. You’ll have to find ways to catch some in those other two periods.”
With so much available habitat, both natural and manmade, Cecil also expects the patterns in play to run the gamut.
“There’s going to be your typical East Texas springtime stuff with ChatterBaits, lipless crankbaits and that kind of stuff,” he said. “You’ll see all of what typically plays in the grass. They’ll find ways to catch them with swimbaits, swimming worms and maybe medium-diving crankbaits or jerkbaits on the grass edges.”
As a fishing fan who will get to watch the best in the world on his home waters, Cecil is excited to be shown some new tricks during the event.
“I know the rules changed, but these guys are the best in the world with this forward-facing sonar,” he said. “I think you’ll see some stuff catching fish that aren’t traditional Lake Conroe patterns and that you’ll see a few things exposed just because of the anglers’ abilities. Guys that have been fishing tournaments here for 25 years will probably see fish caught in ways they’ve never even thought of trying.”
Overall, Cecil predicts an excellent event with plenty of solid fish caught.
“The lake is in great shape for numbers,“ he said. “From fishing here and keeping up with local tournaments, I’m telling you, they’ll have fun.”