I’ve been making runs out in the creek frequently for the past few weeks to monitor what’s been going on and scouting for a upcoming bass tournament. Still, as of yesterday the blueback and threadfin die-off continues in the creek. I fished from the very back of the creek out to the main channel and still observed many birds diving on bait from back to mouth of the creek. This blueback die-off isn’t from cold water, as the water temps yesterday were in the mid 50’s range, but they are dying from what I call “ick” which is a yellow type fungus that builds up on the fish causing the fish to rise to the surface and into a circling gull mouth. I’ve also seen this on several threadfins that are stacked in the very back of the creek. I haven’t seen the ick in a few years and forgot all about it until I saw it again this year. I was chatting with another well know striper fisherman on Lanier who said he witnessed the same thing up on the north end of the lake last weekend. In the very back of the creek and going out to the Marina, the water is stagnated and has a lot of floating debris and a nasty film on the surface of the water that is reminiscent of the turnover. There is also a lot of dead bait littering the bottom of the shallow areas in different stages of decay. Under and around our dock, the dead bait is scattered everywhere on the bottom. I also pulled into a cut that always hold bass for us and saw a 2lb spot, dead on the bottom. I poked at it and flipped it over but saw no visible signs of damage and I hoped it was just a result of a gut hooking. This concerns me a little but I’ve seen no other signs of any dead fish in these areas. I think we need some good rain and the corps needs to move some serious water to flush this out of Bald Ridge. I’ve been watching for stripers and bass in the areas of the dying bait and it seems the fish have all but abandoned these areas. I have marked very few fish in the back of the creek and it seems that the fish are avoiding these areas as well as the fishermen. I’ve seen very few of either in theses areas lately. Once I get out towards mid creek, I can find bass off of points in 25+ feet of water and I’m still seeing some striper over deeper water in the creek channel near timber, but very few up shallow yet. These fish are tough to catch so we have moved our efforts to the more northern reaches of the lake. I would hope that the creek clears up soon because we are very close to a pre-spawn pattern and I’d like to see some of the nasty water cleared up soon.