I don’t have a lot to talk about this week as it’s been somewhat abbreviated. There are 53 steps from my back door down to the dock and early this week my knee couldn’t make but about 3 of the 53 steps. I’m still on track for a Friday Night Man Cave podcast and early this week I worked on the Man Cave remodel. Thankfully there is cortisone and I had gotten a shot in my knee last week so by Wednesday afternoon it was starting to give me some relief.

It seems like everywhere I’ve stopped over the last few days there’s been a 4lber chasing a blueback on the surface within casing distance not long after I pull up, but it no longer has any effect on me, and I just keep on working my little spybait. That 4lber is just like that hot chick at the club with all these pretty dudes trying their best to hook up with her, but they’re all shot down in flames. Their throwing out the best lines and dance moves, but nothing seems to work. I always called that group of guys the “WHA” (went home alone) crowd. There was another group of guys at the club, and they had another plan, it was the “GUE” (go ugly early) plan, and it almost always worked for those guys. That’s my plan this week, however short it was. I put my topwater bait away and I wasn’t going to be teased by the that 4lb hotty bass all thrashing around on the surface trying to eat that blueback. I didn’t drop what I was doing and grabbed my poppin, ploppin, walkin, splashing bait to throw at the hotty, I just keep right on cranking that ugly little spybait at the speed of a 3 toed sloth. There is no topwater approach to my target area this week and I’m going with the “GUE”.

I figured out a while back that the 4lber up on the surface chasing that blueback, she ain’t bitin what you’re throwing and she ain’t coming back. When she leaves the surface to go back down, she ain’t coming back. She gone. I’m talking gone as in “might as well be in the next county” gone. There’s little to no oxygen on the surface and the only reason she pushed that blueback up to the surface is that she knows the blueback is slower up on the surface in that warmer water and that blueback only has 180 degrees of area to move around in on the surface. She’s so focused on that one bait, she could care less about my popper or walking bait. She is laser focused on that bait and basically holding her breath because there is very little oxygen at the surface right now, so the fish are more inclined to stay closer to the thermocline.

It’s almost impossible for me to have success trying to call fish up with the topwater right now so I’m just working the spybait and not getting distracted by the surfacing single fish. Now, if a school comes up, it might be a different story, but I saw very very limited schooling when I was out. I can’t say what is going on before 8am because both Thursday and yesterday I didn’t get out till 8. The little g-fix 80 spybait has been about all I’ve used this week and I really can’t say it’s been on fire but the cool part about the little spybait this week was that most of my fish were nice ones. I didn’t catch numbers over the last 2 days but I did catch some quality fish. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a good medium/fast tip rod, a reel with a good drag system and the right line for the spybait. When you get all those things right and you get the correct retrieve speed on the spybait, you’re bound to have some fun. It’s not quite as fun as topwater but it feels pretty good when a big one loads up on the medium rod. Some of the bigger fish feel like a brick when they load up on the spybait. It’s a lot of fun, more fun than chasing around surfacing fish here and there.

I’m still moving around a lot and spending the bulk of my time out on the main lake. There is a lot of recreational traffic in the creek during the summer months and there are a lot of options out on the main lake without all the boat traffic to contend with. There has been wind to work with for the past few days, so I’ve been utilizing my spot lock function on my Minn Kota and setting up spot lock up wind of my target area. I’ve been fan casting the area and moving in before moving on. About 50% of my stops have been a wash for a nice one but every once in a while, I would pop a good one to keep me in the game. I always have my drop shot rod very handy and ready to drop if I see multiple fish under the boat. You can’t sleep on the drop shot this time of year and every once in a while, you can get some good ones dropping so don’t rule it out.

Who knows what next week will bring but for now I’m putting the bulk of my confidence in the spybait and a little bit of that Georgia Blade flutter spoon early in the morning. The lake level is dropping right now and we’re approaching 2 feet below full pool. Water temps are in the mid to upper 80’s and the corps is generating during peak usage periods in the afternoon and evenings. I put a short video below from one of my memorable spybait catches this week.