This week we’ve been working down in the man cave to give it a little much needed makeover. Lisa and I are adding a few things and finishing out a few projects we’ve been planning for a while. I’m still working towards a podcast, and I set a few goals to get it off the ground. I’d like it to be on Friday evening from 8-10pm down in my man cave and I’d like to start the first podcast on the Friday evening just before the MLF Bulldog 2 day on Lanier. I’m pretty sure we can put together a show with a few guests that evening and we’d probably get a pretty good audience for the first podcast. I would like to cover my weekly report during the podcast and also have guests with reports and info on the lake. I’d also like to cover hunting and have guests that can talk about our upcoming hunting seasons and different topics concerning hunting. I’d like to put together a show in advance and have a video or two as a reference and a topic for our conversation during the show. Definitely we would have a Q and A for the guests and have a good time. It’s still in the planning stages and I’ve got a long way to go. Stay tuned…

The Fishing:

My week started out on Monday morning, and it was a great morning for some good old fashion summer topwater. We had wind and we had cloud cover. It didn’t take me long to break out the white pearl walking bait for the win. If there was wind and brush on a main lake point or hump, I was running the topwater over the top of the brush. Usually there was an alpha bass guarding the brush or the crown of the hump and just a soon as I threw the bait around the hump the alpha bass was going to smash it. Usually, the alpha bass is the first bass to eat and the biggest bass around the brush to be caught. I caught a lot of smaller fish on Monday but here’s a nice sack of 5 topwater fish from Monday morning. I was probably using the topwater walker 75% of the time with the spybait being 25% and drop shot 0%.

Tuesday, I worked down in the man cave during the day and Lisa and I made a quick evening trip for some spybait/drop shot action. It was slow and boat traffic was heavy in the creek, but we managed a few on both drop shot and spybait. Here’s a couple of nice spybait fish that Lisa caught Tuesday evening.

Wednesday was a wash for me. I worked down in the mancave most of the day, but I did go out in the afternoon to throw the spybait and drop shot. Just a few decent keepers on both spybait and drop shot. Here’s a pretty cool pic from Wednesday.

Yesterday it was mainly spybait but I did still catch a few on the little topwater walking bait and the drop shot. In terms of percentages of baits and time used, about 50% of my time has been focusing on spybait with 25% topwater and 25% drop shot. Here’s a couple nice fish from yesterday.

Today was hot from the get-go but you know what they say, “if you can’t stand the heat get off the lake”. I could see from my living room window that the creek was flat as a pancake this morning and as soon as I got out into the wider parts of the creek it confirmed my suspicions. No wind anywhere so I had to make the adjustment and just leave the topwater on the deck and focus on the spybait. My plan was to work the spybait over and around offshore brush and drop shot if I see fish under the boat. I had made 4-5 different stops at points and humps out on the main lake, and I was making a few casts on a hump that had been producing a big fish or two for me lately. That’s when it happened. Now, there’s two different ways these bigger spotted bass hit my little spybait, it’s a nip here and a nip there until they get a little piece of meat snagged from one of the treble hooks. They usually come unbuttoned on the way to the boat when the little piece of meat tears and the big one swims away with a sore lip. Sometimes you can land these fish if you have your drag set properly, and the hook holds long enough to get the fish into the boat. That happens time after time with the spybait and I call those big fish the “nippers”.

The other way the bigger spotted bass hit my little spybait is what I call the “brick”. I call it that because when they hit the spybait it feels like the spybait just hit a brick. It’s a dead stop for a split second and then the fish goes into the routine. It’s like those big old bulls in the PBR rodeo. All of the bulls have their own little moves coming out of the chute. Some come out spinning and some come out bucking. The spotted bass has some moves too and in the case of this morning on that main lake hump, I hit a brick with some moves. The bass did what just about every big bass does, it headed straight back down towards the brush he came out of and as soon as I saw the trajectory of the line start moving downward, I knew it was a big one. That’s when I raise my rod tip to try and turn the fishes head up instead of down. If I’m successful in keeping the big fish out of the brush with a good setting on the drag, the fish usually comes shooting straight up to dislodge the bait and try and shake it while jumping out of the water. They may go through this routine a couple of times but this morning it didn’t work, and I managed this 4.14 pictured below to end my week.

Today it was about 75% spybait and maybe 25% drop shot but with no wind today the spybait was the best choice. I probably shook off 5-10 smaller fish boatside and had a couple close to 3lbs but after catching this one the 2-3’s looked like dinks. It was a great fish to end the week on and I only used 3 baits this week. All pictured above. It’s typical summer patterns for now. Water temps are in the mid to upper 80’s, the water level is about a foot below full pool and the corps is generated during peak power usage in the afternoon and evening. This weekend is the Poker Run on the lake and there a lot of very big and fast boats out there right now. Be safe this weekend!