Yep, that right… Elephant Butte is OPEN for overnight camping… “with restrictions” — you knew that was coming..
Starting tomorrow, Friday 04/16 you can go to the NM State Parks/ Elephant Butte website. somewhere there is a button to purchase a camping permit. You can purchase the permit and bring it with you. this will get you in overnight. The button is supposed to be live on Friday morning. There are capacity limits on the permits, but the Park Rangers say that they do no expect to reach the limits on a normal weekend.
So, at least that’s progress in the right direction… for now..

The White Bass have moved around a bit this week.. yesterday and today, quite a few were caught in Ash Canyon, as well as around Castle Rock up to Kettletop on the East side of the channel. That’s good news because they are starting to move into other areas of the lake. Frank Vilorio caught nice stringers trolling below 2 mph with medium diving crank baits and paddle tail swim baits..

Some Walleye were caught in 4 – 9 feet of water on crank baits, Walley divers and soft Plastics.. in the same areas as the White Bass.. not the usual places for the Walleye..

Walleye were very active at Caballo this week… drifting live shiners with Lindy Rigs over the rocks in about 4 feet of water. Some folks found that drifting the Shiner with about 3 to 4 feet of leader worked better.. IF you don’t know how to tie a Lindy Rig.. ask Mr. Google..

Crappie were very slow this week.

Now that the lake is open for overnighters, we have several folks gearing up for overnight trips on the boat.. we are selling a bunch of live shiners. we also now have Fathead minnows in stock for the crappie when they decide to start biting..

Catfish are still very dependable at the Damsite area.. live bluegills, cut bait, night crawlers are still the baits of choice. great place to take the kids.

Nice bags of Black Bass were caught during the local tournament on Wednesday.. Main lake points and secondary points with plastics, crank baits and creature baits..

Water temps were around 58 degrees in the mornings..

stop in on Friday, Sat or Sunday in the early morning for a gut grenade burrito to set you up for a day on the lake..

“Fishin’ takes patience, fishin’ with a child takes the patience of a saint! But the rewards are Heavenly…

come see us…

bob