Chopaka is scheduled to be killed off soon and the regs are wide open to catch as many fish as possible. The over abundance of smallmouth bass was not evident from what I saw and caught. I fished there 4 days from the shore, boat and caught 3 bass total. There were several bass boats on the lake that set up a bass pen to move the bass, but in a day of hard fishing targeting bass they only caught 4. They were very surprised at the lack of small bass. I caught one smallie at 3.5 lbs and another at 5 lbs, so there are a few large ones. Everyone I talked too were questioning why the F&W were killing this lake off.

The trout fishing was very good. Not super hot action, but I don't mind fishing for 3-4 hours to take a trophy trout. The best fishing was at night from shore using marshmallow and chunk of nightcrawler. I brought home 6 trout, all over 4 lbs. The largest was a fat 6.5 lber. I broke off several that went larger than this and heard reports of several 8-10 lbers being caught. The 2 guys camped next to me kept 18 all over 4 lbs. using powerbait from shore. I saw no fish smaller than 3.5 lbs., so either there's been no stocking in the past several years or the fry have died or been eaten. It was a free for all over the weekend with a number of bass boats razzing up and down the lake in search of bass and a number of trollers. The bait fishers were doing the best, but almost everyone caught at least one fish. The wind was some what of a problem, but calmed down by late afternoon. It was sunny, clear and in the 80's all week. This lake will remain open till Sept 23. Shame to lose all those gorgeous fish, so get out and grab a few before they kill it off.

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