Fishing has slowed way down for me of late, and my plan is to devote more time to my golf swing in the upcoming months. I’m kinda interested in seeing how the new knee will affect my old golf swing and we should have some perfect weather for a change of scenery very soon. We also have the addition of our twin grandbabies and we’ve been watching them a few days a week and that’s been chewing up some fishing time as well. My back has slowly gotten better this week and I think I probably strained it when I was working here at the house. Unfortunately, my brain thinks I’m still in my 30’s when it comes to lifting things. One of the worse things about getting old is the fact that the mind often refuses to accept it. The bulk of my injuries these days are due to that fact.

I only fished a total of 13 hours (mostly in the creek) this week and it didn’t really give me much time to find my rhythm but nonetheless I was still able to put something together. There are several different patterns going on right now at different locations on the lake and even at different locations in the water columns. Once again, it seems that the north end is ahead of the south in terms of fish feeding closer to the surface and changing their target food source to swimming baits due to the shad and blueback spawn. I believe there are still fish in spawning mode, hanging out close to structure on the shore, and I believe there are a lot of post spawn fish in transition to their summer homes out on the brush. This week I chose to target the post-spawn fish around the brush out in deeper water after seeing the bulk of the glitter boat fleet beating the shallow shores. Monday and Tuesday my back was recovering, and they were pretty much a wash for me, and on Wednesday I finally made it out for a while with my back brace on. We had a lot of NW wind to contend with on Wednesday. I got out early to avoid as much wind as I could, and I eventually went back to finesse after bombing for the first hour or so on the topwater and shallow moving stuff. With all the wind I decided to target the transitioning fish that were post spawn and hanging out around the brushpiles and relating to the bottom. I didn’t see a lot of suspended fish, so I just positioned the boat at a casting distance away from the brush, upwind, and spot locked the trolling motor to fan casting around the brushpiles. I usually tried to make a few casts with the spinnerbait over the top of the brush using a 5-10 count before throwing the shaky head. Sometimes there will be a sizable bass hoovering over the brush and the spinnerbait has been my go-to for getting that bass to react before throwing the worm and working on the deeper bottom-oriented fish. On Wednesday that’s pretty much all I did, move around and target the brushpiles in 15-25 feet of water and with the combo of the spinnerbait and then the shaky head. I missed some fish on Wednesday and wasted a lot of time on topwater but I found a few nice ones to end the morning using the shaky head and spinnerbait combo. Here’s a couple nice ones I caught hanging around the brushpiles.

Yesterday I set out to do more of the same and I was able to spend 6 hours on the water with better results. It was a good day and once again my target was the brushpiles out on the ends of points. I didn’t waste a bunch of time with the topwater or fluke and I just went right for the combo. There wasn’t as much wind, but I used the same technique starting with the spinnerbait over the top of the brush for a few casts and then go to work with the shaky head all around the brushpiles. Here’s some of the nicer fish from yesterday.

Today was another babysitting day but I did manage to get out for a couple hours to end the week. On my first stop I caught a couple smaller fish on the spinnerbait on a windy point and I moved on, but that was a good sign. On my second stop I caught a nice one on the spinnerbait over brush and followed it up a hour later with another nice one off another brushpile on the spinnerbait again. After that I hit a little lull and my time was limited so I headed back to the house. My last 2 fish this week are pictured below and a fun way to end the week. My best 2 baits this week was the 3/4-ounce SpotSticker Mini-Me with no trailer and the Zman Big TRD worm on a 1/4-ounce Boss Shaky Head (pictured below). I did catch a few on the weightless fluke rigged Jimmy Sanders style. Water temps are in the low to mid 60’s and the lake is just below full pool.