Every once in a while, usually after a trip to the sauna very early in the morning, I make a biscuit run out in town. (Ha ha, like we live in the country…) One of the main reasons I make a biscuit run, besides the delicious biscuits that the various gas station deli’s offer, is the little tackle store on Buford Dam Road. The Buford Dam Bait and Tackle usually satisfies my craving for purchasing tackle and a nearby gas station satisfies my craving for a gas station biscuit and a can of Red Bull. All of which can be bad for me, but I pretty much live by the motto “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing”. That’s probably how I came down with the Man Flu 10 days ago, out fishing in the cold rain….

This week my fishing report is pretty simple since I only fished one day, which was yesterday. I’m recovering from a nasty sinus infection and all the other stuff that comes with the debilitating Man Flu. I hadn’t been on the water for 10 days and yesterday I finally felt like fishing again. I gotta say that I’m truly blessed to be able to fish such an awesome fishery here at Lanier. The first place I went yesterday was the last place I fished before I got sick and it was like the fish were there waiting on my return. If you read my last report, I described a location I call “the Spa” and it was pretty much the last area I fished before coming down with the flu. The Spa is the first place I went yesterday, and I spent well over two hours fishing a ledge and a point that held some bigger fish. Now that I have sonar again, I was watching my sonar as I idled into the area that was around 40 feet deep and sure enough, right when I hit the sweet spot the graph started sounding suspended fish under the boat. I saw a small group of maybe a half dozen nice thick returns and I thought they might be stripers because the area I was idling over was actually the very end of a point in 35-40 feet of water. I had purchased a couple Flex-it spoons on my biscuit run and I had one tied on my big 7’6″ St. Croix MH Triumph and Penn Fierce 2500. Once I got past the fish I made a mental note of where the were and I dropped the trolling motor to target the marks I saw on the sonar. I got into position and made a long bombing cast with the Flex-it spoon out on the end of the point where I had marked the fish. I let the spoon flutter to the bottom in a controlled drop and when I saw the line go slack, I made my first long pull, making the spoon jump off the bottom and flutter back down. I was mildly surprised when I felt a quick pop on the spoon after just a couple of pulls, and I reeled down on a fighting fish. It was good sized, and I thought it might be a striper out of a small group sitting out on the end of the point. The fish ran towards the boat, and I got a quick glimpse when it got to the boat, it was a nice 4+ spot and probably my biggest of the day. The fish peeled some drag off that Penn reel and that stout St Croix Triumph rod man-handled the fish to the boat perfectly. Here’s a picture of the fish, my first fish in 10 days. It was a good one!

When I brought the fish in, I noticed on the sonar that several other fish came with it, so I quickly unbuttoned the first fish and dropped the spoon straight down under the boat. I watched the group that came with the caught fish chase the spoon down to the bottom, and as soon as I lifted the spoon, the rod loaded up with another fish, only this one was from a vertical presentation. I kinda figured out that these fish hadn’t been messed with much because they were not boat-shy at all and I spent the next 3 hours fishing a small stretch on ledge and a point. Every once in a while, I’d mark a small group of fish moving around under the boat and every once in a while, I’d catch one casting the spoon or throwing the shaky head in the same general area. I think all of my fish, with the exception of the last fish came from 30-40 deep water and the fish were generally oriented to the outer areas of a point. Here’s a few pictures of the bigger fish from the Spa yesterday.

I probably could have finished my day there at the Spa, but I wanted to run one more little stretch of secondary points in the creek that faced the southwest. There is a stretch of 3-4 points that are in the sun for most of the day and by mid-afternoon the fish are cruising these areas of shallower water, but very near deeper water. I ran the whole stretch of points in the last hour of my trip and in the last few minutes, probably my last cast on the last point I caught my last fish of the day, and it was a good one to end the day with. I caught it on my favorite shaky head rig.

I would say that 3 of my biggest fish, including the biggest yesterday came from the Flex-it spoon pictured above and the other two big ones came from throwing my shaky head rig into 30-40 depths out on the ends of points. Same with the spoon. Water temps were 52 in the morning and 54 in the afternoon. Water levels on the lake are dropping again and a little over 8 feet below full pool.