TAKING 'EM TO SCHOOL<br/><span class='hl2'>September on scenic southeastern lake is prime time to catch those big bass</span>

McGEE CREEK LAKE — It seems silly for a grown man to lose sleep over catching fish, but I was tossing and turning in bed Wednesday night at the prospect of getting into some schooling bass on McGee Creek.

Fishing guide Chuck Justice, perhaps Oklahoma's most famous angler next to Jimmy Houston, called last week to report that the bass had started schooling on the scenic lake at the southwestern edge of the Ouachita Mountains.

The chance of catching schooling largemouth bass in the same kind of frenzied action that most anglers are accustomed to catching surfacing sand bass couldn't be passed up, so I made a bee line to Atoka County at the first opportunity.

Summertime and in the fall when bass school most often, chasing shad all the way to the surface. Warm water and a large amount of small bait fish will drive bass into a feeding frenzy.

I've heard stories about McGee Creek's famous schooling bass, but have never seen it.

Justice says the schooling activity is not like it was when McGee Creek was a new lake, but it's still better than anywhere else he has ever fished.

"The only other lake I have ever seen that had very many schooling bass on it was Broken Bow,” Justice said. "And Broken Bow compared to this one, well, you can't compare ‘em. Here, when they are schooling, it gets noisy. It gets loud.”

McGee Creek is arguably Oklahoma's best trophy bass lake. Impounded in 1989, it is well-stocked with the Florida-strain of largemouth bass, which grow faster and larger.

State wildlife officials learned from nearby Sardis Lake, which was impounded four years before McGee Creek, that the Florida-strain of largemouths needed to be added each year, otherwise the strain became diluted.

The mistake was not made on McGee Creek.

McGee Creek produces trophy bass (8-pounds are better) more often than any other lake in the state.

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