It’s finally here! October has to be my favorite month of the year, and for many reasons. Soon the leaves around the lake will turn colors as the season changes and provide a backdrop of beauty for all to behold. Major league baseball has reached the playoff season and football is just starting. Usually by October my fantasy football teams are well on their way to another losing season and I’m left scratching my head on what went wrong this year. Following college football is a family tradition in the south and if you’re not a fan of the SEC, well, bless your heart. October brings a fishing pattern to the lake that is like no other and our topwater bite on Lake Lanier, with a backdrop of crimson and gold shoreline is the perfect setting. It’s a spectacular time of year and the way things are looking it should be a banner fall for topwater around the lake.

It’s been a couple weeks since my last report but not a whole lot has changed for me. I’ve been on this topwater binge for a while now, probably since the spring. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve mixed in a couple of other patterns but topwater has been my favorite for months now. This summer was one of those summers that provided me with topwater excitement nonstop. Well almost nonstop. I had to stop for my latest knee replacement. That sidelined me for a month or so, but the new knee has finally settled in and as a result, there is much less pain than before the replacement. I just finished my physical therapy and hopefully this old body holds together without another joint issue for a while, or at least until the lake turns over and topwater is minimal till next spring.

In my last report, I was all in on the Riser topwater bait and I learned a lot using it for the first time this year. It’s a very effective bait this time of year because the fish are feeding heavily on the balls of threadfin shad drifting all over the lake and especially in the front half of the creeks right now. This is the time of year that the bait starts making that trek to the creeks where they will spend their winter, making their way to the backs of the creeks where the water may be just a bit warmer. The threadfin shad are small, most in the 1-2 size and the little riser isn’t much bigger than that, plus it creates a wake which is what the bass are looking for on the surface. Bass like to track down the source of a wake, thinking it’s probably a blueback on the surface. The riser also works well when there isn’t a whole lot of wind and the clear riser really works during those times and for pressured fish.

This week the Ima ko ruled the week for the biggest fish. I probably missed about 90% of the fish that actually blew up on it, but I did connect with a few. Most of the time I had to keep the Ima moving at a pretty good pace to get the bites and not give the fish a good look at it but there were also a few times that the fish reacted to the bait when it was dead sticked. Dead sticking wasn’t exactly the pattern I was using but sometimes I would kill the bait about halfway back to the boat and wait about 10-20 seconds, especially if I had fish swimming underneath it on the retrieve and every once in a while, a fish would come up and grab it. I think it was probably the flash from the shiny chrome that would trigger the bite while dead sticking. The Ima worked best in a medium chop over brush this week but if the chop got smaller, I would put the Ima down and pick up the clear riser. It seemed like the fish preferred the riser over the Ima in lite chop and that clear bait had them baffled at times. I had two fish that were 4lbs or over today and both came from a hump this afternoon with the clear riser. It’s been a good choice for me. If it got flat and the fish were on the bottom, I’d throw the shaky head, especially on the crown of the humps or around the brush.

Another bait I used for success this week was the spinnerbait. In the mornings there wasn’t much of a solid topwater bite for me but hitting the points with some wind and chop on them was the perfect place for the 3/4-ounce SpotSticker Mini Me pictured below. That little bait was my answer to stubborn topwater fish in the morning. Below is pics my best baits this week.

I’d like to write more but that’s about all I have time for this week. It was a fun week, and the recent rains has brought the water level up to less than a foot below full pool which is about a 3-foot jump in the last 10 days. Water temps are fluctuating from the mid to upper 70’s and the corps is generating a few hours in the evenings. It won’t be long till the leaves turn colors and the topwater peaks for the fall. Here are a few of my memorable fish this week.