fishing

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Slow Your Roll Huckleberry

I’ll bet you’re wondering about that catchy title, but that’s about what it boiled down to this week. I did incorporate more Livescope to locate fish, mainly when using the crankbait, and I found it to be pretty amazing watching the fish react to the crankbait as it got close to them. Earlier this week, I was watching my crankbait swim along using Livescope, and as the crankbait swam along, fish started coming up off the bottom, one right after another, in a straight line towards the crankbait. It was almost like watching a hatching of termites as they all leave the ground nest; the fish were appearing from the same little area on the bottom and swimming up to check out the crankbait. Inevitably, as the group of bass spectators gathered around the crankbait, one from the group would break camp, as if to say, “I’m your Huckleberry,” and attack the crankbait. I caught a lot of Huckleberries this week, and the crankbait prevailed again as my favorite bait for the week.

Last week I had an old friend in my boat, and we were reminiscing about growing up in the Midwest and fishing farm ponds as a kid. My old friend Greg’s dad used to take him fishing as a kid just like my dad used to take me fishing as a kid. I told Greg that the most important thing I learned from those fishing trips was patience. My dad would have me sitting on the bank of the pond watching our catfish rods and just waiting for a catfish to take the bait. If I got up and wandered around, my dad would reel in the fish, and I would miss out, so I always stayed pretty close to those rods and waited. I learned to be patient on those pond dykes as a kid and it still helps today.

I had Lisa out with me last week and I wanted her to catch a fish or two on the crankbait I’ve been using so I gave her the rod and bait I had been using to catch my crankbait fish. I grabbed another rod and tied the exact same bait on the same leader and main line. Everything we had was exactly the same. We started out beating some rocky bank in the creek that had wind blowing on it, and I knew there would probably be some fish on it. Within a 100 yard stretch I had put 3 solid fish in the boat and Lisa still hadn’t had a sniff. We moved to a different area, and I boated a couple more fish and still nothing for Lisa, so I started trying to figure out the difference in what I was doing and what she was doing. It was obvious that there was a difference after I had a half dozen fish in the boat and Lisa had none. One thing that stood out was her retrieve was much more deliberate and at a quicker pace. Generally, when Lisa and I are using crankbaits, we’re trying to make contact or stay in contact with the bottom as long as possible, but as we get into late spring the shad spawn begins, and the bass start thinking about chasing shad. Crankbaits that are more shallow divers and bare a shad pattern are more successful this time of year and just swimming the crankbait with a slow retrieve just below the surface often triggers a strike. I showed Lisa the slower speed and explained to her that the bait just needed a slow retrieve with the rod tip down. It didn’t take long after Lisa made the adjustment, she started catching more fish and put 3 in the boat shortly afterwards. It just took a little patience with that slower speed to get the fish to react.

The bite had just about everything to do with the speed of the crankbait for me this week but I gotta brag on the gear I used to make it a fun week of cranking. First, Jeff Nail and St Croix hooked me up with a sweet 7’3″ mxf Black Bass spinning rod for helping represent St Croix at a Scheel’s event at Lake Lanier Islands this past winter. I put one of my Shimano Stradic 2500’s on the rod and loaded it with 20lb Cast Co. braid. Casting distance is very important to me and hands down; Cast Co. braid is the best on the market when it comes to casting distance. For my leader I’m using about 8-10 feet of 8lb Seaguar Invizx and tying the two together with my Cast Away knot. My crankbait of choice for the last few weeks has been the Rapala DT-8 in green gizzard shad and it’s been my best percentage bait for a while.

I’ve found a little bit of topwater here and there, but it’s mainly been a “right place right time” event with the topwater. Yesterday I was able to call more fish up to the surface than in previous days so maybe that’s a good sign for days to come with the topwater bite. I did also get on a little tear with a jerkbait earlier in the week but my “cast to catch” percentage was low with that bait so I gravitated back to the DT-8 which yielded a higher percentage.

Closing in on the weeks end, I was down to 2 baits; it was the little chrome Azuma Zdog walking bait for my starting bait and after a cast or two I would go to work with the crankbait. If there was no wind in the area I was fishing, I’d usually go right to the crankbait and forego topwater all together. The Livescope came into play all week as I used it to locate fish and then I’d usually turn the transducer away from the fish after I made my cast. If the fish were up in the water column and there was wind, I would go with the topwater, and if the fish were down in the water column, I would go with the crankbait. After a few topwater casts, whether I caught a fish or not, I’d switch over to the crankbait and start casting around fish. The technique with the crankbait was pretty simple, I could cast the crankbait about 120-130 feet on average and my Livescope is set to 100 feet looking forward, so my cast covers everything inside the Livescope screen on the retrieve. If there’s at least 5-10 fish inside the screen and I run my crankbait through them, more than likely one of those fish is going to chase it down and strike at it. Speed was the most important part and most of the time the DT-8 was only 4-6 feet below the surface on the retrieve and that put it right in the zone over the deeper brush. The retrieve kinda reminds me of the spybait retrieve, once you get locked into the right speed and start catching more fish, you gain more confidence in the process.

Location for throwing the crankbait this week was pretty forgiving and I focused on a lot of brush out on the ends of points and I was just blind casting around points and rocky areas most of the time. A lot of my fish this week came from at least 15 feet of water and the deepest crankbait fish I caught this week was from 32 feet of water. It didn’t really matter to the fish. If the fish was suspended and there was a group, one was probably going to go after it no matter what depth it was. Once again, the key was the speed.

That’s about all I did this week which gave me the best results. The lake is about a foot above full pool and the surface temps are in the mid to low 70’s right now. He’s a few pics from my week.

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Six options for spring on Lanier

This week was about as short as it gets for me. Yesterday was the only day that I got an early start and stayed out till mid-afternoon this week. I fished a few hours earlier in the week, but I really didn’t get a handle on things until today. The way my morning started this morning was with some topwater at dawn after seeing a few surfacing fish on a point in the creek. They were shallow and chasing bluebacks on the surface, so I tied on the Spro Epop in the emerald color, and it didn’t take long till a fish came completely out of the water, blowing up on the popper. It was my first topwater fish for 2025 and it was on the emerald color. It reminded me of catching fish in late March years ago on the old emerald popper. I generally use the popper if I see surfacing fish but it’s also a good idea to start throwing it around those shallow pockets very early in the morning right now. Yesterday I found that the fish were actively feeding on top for about the first hour of sunrise. The popper bite will improve over the next couple months but it’s a good idea to have it tied on and ready.

The second bait I used with success yesterday was the Damiki Keitech swimbait over brush and on points. I like the little Damiki rig when it’s flat in the early morning hours because I’ve found over the years that the bass can react to smaller baits in flat conditions, better than larger baits. Basically, it’s easier to fool them with the little 2.8 Keitech on a 1/4-ounce Damiki head, whether it’s over brush or just blind casting a point early in the morning. If you’re using Livescope, it’s just as easy as locating fish in the tops of the timber or brushpiles, and making a cast just beyond the target area, counting to ten and a slow retrieve back to the boat. I can also cast to single fish or small wolf packs with the little swimbait using Livescope and it kinda reminds me of sight fishing redfish in the marshes of Louisiana. You can also use the little Keitech around docks with great success right now and yesterday I caught fish with the keitech around docks, points and over brush.

Next came my meat and potatoes bait yesterday, the shaky head. I used this the most yesterday and it produced some very nice fish, first while running a stretch of deeper docks and then I started hitting the deeper, shady rock bluffs. If you’re not scoping docks, right now you just have to assume there are fish under every dock….and there could be right now. Right now, my favorite place to look for bigger fish with the worm would have to be a deep, dark shady rock bluff with a blowdown or sunken wood on the bottom. The sundrenched rock bluffs are a good option right now, but I prefer the deep, dark shady areas for bigger fish right now. Really, you can’t go wrong throwing a shaky head worm around rocks and docks right now, especially in those mid-morning hours when you’re waiting for that wind to kick up. Yesterday I caught the most fish on the shaky head.

Late yesterday morning the wind started to blow out of the SW, and it started a pretty good ripple in the creek so I noticed the wind blowing right into a couple rocking points and I wanted to see if the crankbait bite was still an option, so I picked up the cranking rod and started making bomb casts with the crankbait across points. The DT10 runs at about 10 feet in depth but most of my casts started at close to 10 feet and I don’t think I caught a fish on the crankbait yesterday while it was making contact with the bottom. I ran a long stretch of rip rap in the creek and found a couple of smaller fish willing to eat the crankbait, but I just wasn’t feeling it with the crankbait. The wind was really starting to pick up and I had another fun bait in mind, but the crankbait is definitely still in play right now. It won’t be long till we can put away the red cranks and pull out the shad pattern crankbaits. We’re going to be approaching the shad spawn very soon and a shad pattern crankbait that dives between 5-10 feet will be the ticket for some nice bass prior to, and during the shad spawn.

If it’s spring and the wind is blowing, you’d better have a spinnerbait on the deck. Yesterday in the early afternoon the wind picked up and it provided me with plenty of options for my 3/4-ounce SpotSticker Baits Mini Me. Right now, I don’t use a trailer for the bait, and it does just fine without one. It’s pretty simple with the spinnerbaits right now. Just find a wind point and start chunking it around. I like to spot lock up wind and make my casts downwind for the extra distance on the cast. I follow it up with a 10-15 count depending on the depth I’m fishing. If I’m fishing shallow, I like to keep it just above the bottom and for deeper applications like over brush, I’ll give it a 10 count just to get it down below the surface a bit. Yesterday I caught some nice ones with the spinnerbait out on windy points, but I broke it off in the top of a brushpile after success on a few points. I don’t like to use Livescope for the spinnerbait because I like the surprise I get from the fish slamming the bait unexpectedly. After I broke off the spinnerbait, I decided to pull out one of my all time spring bait favorites, but the spinnerbait on windy points is a must right now in the afternoons.

The last bait I used yesterday was the Zman Jackhammer chatterbait. Man, I gotta tell you guys, I love me some chatterbait in the spring. If nothing else, I love the way my rod unloads and reloads when they hit the chatterbait. The heck with Livescope! Give me the thrill of not knowing exactly when it’s going to happen and when it does happen, it can be extreme. Once I broke off that spinnerbait yesterday afternoon, I didn’t skip a beat and hit a rock point with wind on it. On my first cast I felt the chatterbait unload and reload, and I knew a fish had swirled on it. My very next cast produced another swirl so I knew there was interest. I worked my way down the side of the point and made casts across the point; on my 4th cast, I felt the bait totally unload and then reload, doubling over with a fighting fish on the end. That’s such a great feeling when fishing points out in the wind. Years ago when I first started using the Jackhammer, I mainly used it around docks and in the shallows in the spring but over the years I’ve broadened my usage of the chatterbait to include rocks, docks, points and random bank beating. Basically, I’ll use it anywhere, anytime the wind is blowing and it’s sunny out. One of the biggest attractions using the chatterbait is that chrome flash from the blade in the afternoon sun. That flash is a fish magnet and one of the main reasons I have success with it. Another successful area I like to use the chatterbait is the shade patches around docks in the afternoons. There’s just something about running that chatterbait through a shade patch down the side of a dock and feeling a fish slam it in the dark shadow. I finished my afternoon yesterday about 4pm and the last 2 hours were spent throwing the chatterbait in the wind and popping the occasional bass. I think the chatterbait provided the most fun for me yesterday and the wind was instrumental in my success. I used a pearl paddletail fluke jr. for a trailer on the chatterbait and it provided a great ending for my week.

Right now the lake is holding steady at just above full pool and the corps is only moving water a few hours a day. Water temps are still a little on the low side for this time of year but the lake is warming and approaching 60 degrees right now. Above are 6 baits that I use this time of year with great success on Lanier. I could rattle off another 4-5 baits that I would use in addition to these six but these are 6 of my favorites and the ones I used with success yesterday. Here’s a few more fish from my week.

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Fishing, Fasting and Felines

This week has been an interesting one for sure. It started out this week with Lisa traveling for work, so I had to hold down the fort early on this week. Last Wednesday I started a 10 day fast for religious and health reasons. First off, my prayers for folks have gotten larger here lately and I wanted to spend more time in prayer and less time enjoying good meals. I’ve read a lot about fasting and the health benefits of fasting and I wanted to give it a try. I’ve also watched several episodes of “Naked and Afraid” on tv and it seemed to me that most of the plump, pale and pudgy ones seem to do very well, basically surviving off their own body fat for days in a state of ketosis. They just lay around the grass hut eating their own fat and make their skinny tattooed partner mad because the skinny one is doing all the work. The ones that come in skinny and don’t eat much, have issues and drop out a lot more than them chunky ones. If they can do it for 21 days naked, cold, with nothing but bugs and worms to eat while getting bitten by insects, surely, I can do it in the comfort of my home. Mainly it’s a test of my willpower and sacrifice. Well, I finished my 10 days yesterday and I feel pretty good as my only solid food over ten days was a little chicken or shrimp and fresh asparagus or soup some evenings. I had a little fruit in the mornings for a few days but most days I just had a cup of coffee and started my day. During the day I drank a can of Fresca which is basically carbonated citrus water and that would carry me through the day. I did lose weight as well as energy for sure. I dropped down to my last belt notch over the 10 days, but I do feel a bit better overall. I’m going to do another fast soon but the next time I’m going to try without the morning coffee, and we’ll see how that goes.

On another note, our new little kitten, Casper is not doing well and we’re just praying that he makes it. Lisa found the little guy abandoned in a work shed and it was very cold so Lisa thought the little newborn kitten was dead. She put the Kitten in her coat pocket and a few minutes later her pocket started moving. The mother was reunited with the kitten and nursed it along with 3 other kittens that Lisa rescued in the shed that would have surely died. We found a home for the others, and we decided to keep the little white one to give our current cat a friend be around while were away. We’re not sure what happened to little Casper, but he just started getting very lethargic and all but quit eating. The vet said he had a little fever but otherwise they could find anything. They wormed him and we left. He may have eaten something he wasn’t supposed to as we have some indoor plants or maybe it was a piece of plastic. Once before he ate a little piece of plastic, and we waited 4 days before he finally passed it. If you’re reading this, please keep little Casper in your prayers as he’s struggling right now.

Fishing started slow but turned on big time as the week progressed. This week was one of those weeks that gets better as the week progresses with the weather being stable and the bass getting into their spawning routine. There are some weeks where the fish reset and things that were working days before don’t work now. Last week I was having a ball with the crankbait but this week I didn’t catch one fish on a crankbait, and it wasn’t from a lack of trying. Monday, I didn’t fish, and Tuesday was a short day, but Lisa was back on Wednesday, so I hit the lake to put something together. The numbers were there on Wednesday, but the bigger fish were baffling me until Thursday when I started to zero in on the big girls, then it was just a matter of making the right casts to see if they were home. The shaky head was what they wanted to bite but the bite was somewhat unique, and I had to get used to it.

This week the bite with the worm was subtle to say the least. One of the most important things I mastered with the shaky head is learning to feel the bite however small it is. It just drives me crazy to fish with someone who slacklines a lot. The key to success with these big spots is to never have slack in your line because you can miss a very subtle bite from a big fish if you have slack in your line. When I’m dragging my worm on the bottom, I want to feel everything. Every little stick, rock or indifference on the bottom. I want to be able to feel when a fish slowly picks up my bait and starts swimming away. Using braid with a flourocarbon leader intensifies the feeling coming up the line and I try and visualize what the worm is doing on the bottom. On Wednesday I didn’t fish clean and lost a couple key fish by not setting the hook properly when a fish would pick up my worm and swim straight towards the boat, which was most of the time this week. Once the worm was picked up by the fish and I reeled down on the swimming fish I would forget the hookset and just keep reeling down. I lost two very nice fish to thrown hooks on Wednesday, but I figured out my error and vowed to correct that on Thursday’s trip.

Thursday I kinda knew what I was going to do, and it didn’t involve a crankbait or any other moving bait for that matter. The big fish I lost from the day earlier just happened to be out on the end of deeper dock, and basically the big female was in some form of spawn mode. You have to keep in mind that spotted bass will spawn deeper than largemouth, especially the bigger ones, and our spots can spawn just about anywhere. It could be out on the main lake humps, or it could be around an unsuspecting dock, down in 20-25 feet of water, around some small structure. These bass can be hidden from Livescope and my best hope was to just throw the worm around the deeper docks and work the worm very very slowly! I caught fish during the morning hours on Thursday, but the good bite didn’t start till early to midafternoon and that’s when I really concentrated on the deeper docks. After a few smaller fish I boated a 4.3 off a dock and figured it would be my biggest until just before the end of my deep dock run, I hit pay dirt. I threw the worm to the front corner of a 25-foot-deep dock and let the worm drop straight down. I’d made that cast a thousand times before over the years on the front corner of that dock and I knew there wasn’t any major structure in the area of my cast. Once the worm hit the bottom I started a very slow drag. It didn’t take long till I felt the worm stop like it had come into contact with something. I just held a little pressure on the worm and waited. I felt the worm move just a little. I hadn’t induced that movement, and I knew it wasn’t natural. I kept a little pressure on the line and again I felt something unnatural barely moving the worm followed by a slight tick. The tic is generally when the fish quickly sucks the bait in by opening the mouth very quickly and creating a strong quick vacuum. In the next second I figured that hooksets were free, and nobody was looking so I reeled down and laid into the suspected worm nibbler. The first thing I felt was dead weight but, in another second, I felt a big head shake and I knew I had something big. The fish stayed down and swam out to the boat like dead weight with an occasional big head shake. When the fish finally decided to come up and jump, I could see the worm lodged deep inside the roof of her mouth. She wasn’t going to shake that out and I dipped the net in the water as she shook her head, tail walking right into my waiting net. At first glance I thought it had to be a largemouth but on a second look I knew it was just a big ole spot. I said “thank the Lord and where’s my scales”!! I was shooting for a 5lber and when I hung her on the scales it immediately popped up to 6.3 which was a tie with my biggest spot to date, but the scale settled on 6.1 and I said, “I’ll take it”. It was every bit as thrilling as the 6.3 record from years ago. I put the fish in the livewell after weighing her and I sat down for a second and relaxed. I thought about running back to the house with the fish and grabbing a tape measure for a replica mount, but then I thought that the fish was probably close to spawning and I really didn’t was to drag her around for a measuring session so after a couple minutes I picked her up and took a good look, thanked the Lord again for such a great fish and I released her. She headed straight back to the dock she came from. The picture at the top was the only picture I took of her besides the picture of the scales.

Yesterday I was out with my buddy Jeff Williams, and we were doing a little worm fish. Years ago, Jeff helped me tremendously by giving me confidence in the shaky head. I took several beatdowns from Jeff using the shaky head over the past few years and every once in a while, we get together, throwing the worm to match our skills. The last time I think we tied so this time was going to be the tiebreaker with equal time on the front, nothing but a worm and no Livescope. Yesterday Jeff jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. We had a great time as usual, but the good bite didn’t really start until the last couple hours of the trip. Jeff was ahead by 3 fish, and we ran one last stretch of deeper docks which accounted for most of the bigger fish for the day. Just after 3 o’clock I made a cast into a shade patch of a deeper dock and soon after the worm hit the bottom, I felt a small tug on the worm. I reeled down and set the hook on another bigger fish. At first, I didn’t think the fish warranted the net but then Jeff got a look at her, and he immediately told me it was 5 or over. Once again, the big fish tail walked right into Jeff’s waiting net and the fight was over. I knew it was right at 5 if not over and I thanked the Lord again and weighed her at 5.2. After that we fished a bit longer but called it a day and headed back to the house. Jeff got me in numbers as usual, but I did manage the big fish of the day which finished out my week of fishing and 10 days of fasting. It was a great ending to the week and to my fasting.

The lake is a little over full pool right now and the corps is moving water a few hours today. Water temps have been on the rise all week and was somewhere around 55-57 degrees in the creek. The fish are staging and getting very close to an early wave of big spawners right now. I targeted the deeper fish that I felt were staging at the deep end of the docks and it worked pretty well for me. The most important thing for me was being able to recognize that subtle bite from the bigger fish. Here’s a few more fish pics from my week.

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Creatures of Habit

It’s been a few years, but I probably wouldn’t have the experience and knowledge with the spoon during the winter months if not for a Friday evening on the way back down lake after a day of pre-fishing for a tournament the following morning. It was getting close to sunset, and I was passing the mouth of 6-mile creek, on my way back to Bald Ridge when I just happened to see a large flock of gulls circling and diving in a small cove in the Shady Grove area. I saw a few loons working below the gulls and I turned the boat towards the action. At the same time a center console boat was coming from the opposite direction and heading straight for the birds. We both pulled up just short of the action at the same time and we were both on the bow of the boats in no time making casts into the area. I was throwing a pearl white Sebile and immediately hooked up with a striper. At the same time, I could see the guy in the center console very near me was hooked up too, only his fish was a big spot. We both made casts again after releasing our fish and I immediately hooked up with another striper while the guy in the striper boat brought another huge bass to his boat. After seeing that, I asked the guy what he was using and he showed me a little white War Eagle spoon. I generally used my smaller spoons for vertical fishing but after seeing him bring in two 4-5lb spots casting the spoon, I tied one on and sure enough, the stripers had no interest in the spoon but the bass were crushing it.

The next morning my buddy Matt and I entered a UGA tournament and won it with just shy of 20lbs and just about every fish we weighed that day came from casting the spoon in various ditches. We had 2 fish that were over 5lbs, and the rest were decent fish also. That winter the bass were just crushing the spoon in the center of the ditches, but the bite was much better when casting the spoon, rather than working it vertically. That’s probably the best day I’ve had casting the spoon in the winter and to win a tournament with 2 five-pound studs was just icing on the cake.

This week started on Sunday afternoon after church service. About the whole time I was sitting in church I was thinking about ditch fishing and the spoon. A friend of mine asked if I would mind saving him some fish for a family meal and I told him I would. His family loves fish but he’s doesn’t fish so every once in a while, he’ll contact me and ask for some fish. I’ve got no problem saving him some fish and helping to feed a family is worth saving a few bass for table fare. He usually brings me a 12 pack of beer which I don’t drink but I take it out to the country and give the beer to a friend who does drink beer and has a private lake filled with crappie and bass, so I exchange the beer for crappie and bass fishing in his lake. It’s a good trade and I usually load the freezer with crappie and bass filets from the lake.

I knew exactly where I was going to go on Sunday afternoon after doing some scouting on Thanksgiving afternoon while giving the grandkids a joyride in the boat. We stopped in the middle of a ditch and on the first drop, the bottom came alive, and we were in business. Two of my grandkids got to reel in a bass from the ditch and then we left them biting because it was just too cold to have the kids out in the wind. That ditch was loaded with fish as it is just about every year around this time and sometimes, I just have to drop my spoon on faith because the fish are usually so stuck to the bottom, I can’t pick them up on sonar or Livescope. I’ve written about this before but when using the spoon, Livescope is helpful to locating the moving fish but the ones that are resting on the bottom are very hard to see. I just know from fishing Lanier for the past 20+ years that the fish will be there and you can just about cast your spoon in any direction, letting the spoon flutter down to the bottom and usually the fish will come alive and pull off the bottom to investigate the spoon. Sometimes they hit the spoon before it gets to the bottom and sometimes it takes a few hops on the bottom to get the fish to react. Once I get a group up and swimming around, chances are, more groups are going to start moving around, thinking something is happening. Depending on the size of the group in the ditch, it can provide fun for hours or it can only last a few minutes before the group scatters. Releasing the caught fish back into the ditch will generally shut the bite down after the third or fourth fish, so I usually keep the fish in the livewell until I get ready to leave the area or I get 5-10 in the livewell. When I release the fish, I usually idle away from the ditch before releasing my catch if I want to continue to fish the area. I don’t recommend keeping the fish in the livewell for an extended period of time unless of course, you know what you’re doing, you’re a tournament angler or a fishing guide trying to put that five bass picture together. (I always get a chuckle out of that one).

Back to Sunday afternoon. I’d like to be able to tell you that there are certain things that I look for when looking for a productive ditch, and there are but for the past week, the two most productive ditches for me were in areas that are nothing special, just flat mud bottom with very little structure. One would be classified as a ditch but the other is just basically a swing in a creek channel. In both cases there is bait, clouds of bait just drifting through the areas. Massive clouds of threadfin shad moving around, not being influenced by the wind but just kinda hanging around the area. The bass in the first ditch were everywhere on Sunday and there was some bigger fished mixed in this year. I think the average size is up this year and I think the average size bass being caught around the lake is up this year too. I probably caught close to 30 fish on Sunday afternoon and provided table fare for a friend. Think of that beer as a big bag of crappie filets for a fish fry.

I fished again on Monday for a couple hours in the warmest part of the day generally cycling through four different ditches that have produced, and I had a pretty good run. I skipped Tuesday and shot back out on Wednesday for a couple hours in the warmest part of the day. On Thursday I fished with my friend Curtis, from church, who also lives on the lake and is a pilot for Delta. He has a pretty busy schedule, but he managed to jump in the boat with me on his way back home after flying back from Denver. He said it was actually warmer in Denver than here. We got into fish right away in the early afternoon and Curtis put 2 nice fish in the boat on his first 3 casts to start us off. I think one of which may have been his pb at a little shy of 5lbs. We brought a couple doubles to the boat and fished for a couple hours, bouncing back and for between 2 ditches, before calling it a day.

Yesterday I got out again from noon till 3 or so and caught a lot of fish but I could tell that things were slowing down a bit in the ditches for the spoon bite. The fish Have been looking at the spoon all week and the size of the bass certainly decreased yesterday. The biggest key this week was the bait and matching the hatch with the 1/2-ounce War Eagle spoon. Early in the week, it was all about the white spoon but by Wednesday they really reacted to the chrome spoon much better. When I came off the water yesterday afternoon the water temp was down to 55 and dropping. It was 58 at the beginning of the week. The lake is down a little over 4 feet and dropping, exposing some pretty interesting shoreline and bass hideouts when the lake is at full pool. Here’s a few of the memorable fish from my week.

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Ima October Topwater Addict

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.

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It’s Time to Move

I’m finally getting on the water with the new boat and getting it broke in. The motor cleared the 20-hour inspection and it’s time to do some serious fishing. I got a fresh new injection of cortisone in the knee so that should be good-to-go for a few weeks…I hope, because the next step is another replacement, and that means 2 months of down time. Also, I’ve finally gotten the chance to play with the FFS and it’s been everything I thought it would be. My early morning ditch fish have been totally on FFS and I’ve watched the fish see my bait and react to it, start to finish. I thought that was pretty cool. Man, there is so much to learn though. I can tell already that I could get sucked into just using FFS all day and just absorbing every detail of what I’m seeing. How the fish react to my bait in real time and the graphics of the event is amazing. I can actually see the fish’s tail wagging as it swims after my bait! We’ve come a long way from the old flashers and watching for that little red dot to pop up.

Speaking of flashers, years ago, like maybe 40 years ago, it was late winter, and a buddy and I were returning to the ramp after a day off fishing a lake in central California. Right before we got my buddies Bass Tracker back to the ramp we had to cross over a small point, and we still had the flasher on as we idled over the point. I happen to look down at the flasher and I saw it light up with something between the boat and the bottom. I didn’t really know exactly what it was, but I knew something was suspended below the surface in 25-30 feet of water on the crown of the point. Once we trailered the boat my buddy Sonny was going through the rituals of prepping the boat for the long haul back home and I was dying to take a topwater rod down to the point and make a couple casts around the area I saw the fish on the flasher. Sonny told me to walk down and make a couple casts with a Zara Spook, so I headed down to the water’s edge on the point. I threw the Spook into the area where I saw the fish on the flasher and no sooner than the Spook hit the water a big largemouth just exploded on it. I fought that fish to the bank just as the sun was setting and it was a great way to end the trip. I thought it was the coolest thing to see the fish on the flasher and then catch the fish just a few minutes later. We’ve come a long way with technology since I was in my early 20’s and the flasher was the latest and greatest technology.

One thing that was noteworthy about that big bass was that he was out on the end of that point in 25-30 feet of water feeding and it was a warm evening in late Feb. My guess is that was staging and feeding up for the spawn. The same thing is starting here on the lake and the fish are starting to get their mojo back and some are thinking it time to start chowing down around those staging areas. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of fish in the ditches munching on threads and blueback but then there are the meat eaters. Here’s a good example of some meat eating up on the staging points. This is a bigger fish I caught on a secondary rocky point in the creek last week. Check out the regurgitated fish I found in her mouth. That’s one meal she didn’t get to finish but a good example of the type of meal these fish require when staging and pre-loading for the spawn.

The biggest success I had with the bigger fish for the past couple weeks came from focusing on that 20 to 35-foot range out on the ends of points after the sun got up and back in the ditches very early in the mornings. I also had success around some of the deeper docks, mainly out on the deeper ends or the front of the docks like maybe some staging fish in deeper areas rather than the shallower areas of the dock. I would say that about 70% of my fish for the past few weeks were caught on a shaky head and the other 30% with a small swimbait on a Lanier Baits 1/4-ounce Damiki head or a 1/4 Trixster Baits Kamikaze head. I would also say that just about 60% of my bigger fish came from the shaky head out on the ends of points with the other 40% coming from the deeper areas of the ditches, like 40+ feet deep ditches. I mainly used the FFS of the ditch work and then turned it off, opting for using my mapping to show me the staging areas on the sunny afternoons. One thing that’s pretty cool and helps a lot with my mapping is Humminbird’s new VX mapping chip. You can do multiple contour color shading. I set my target area at about 20 feet to 35 feet in a nice shade of green and I concentrated on making most of my casts in that area when I approached a secondary point. As the afternoon progresses, I may focus on some more shallow areas of a secondary point but most of my focus has been these areas where historically bass stage in the early spring. Here’s a video I made a few years back explaining the areas where bass will stage in early spring.

Another tactic I’ve used in the past few weeks is following the loons when they are feeding early in the morning. The loons have been stirring up the bait which has been stirring up the bass in the areas of loon activity. It’s a good idea to pay attention to the loons, especially when they are cruising around in groups looking for bait. Working around the loons with a swimbait and letting it sink to the bottom is worth a try. If there are active bass in the area, I’ve been able to pick them up on the LiveScope and cast or drop the Damiki to them with a good success rate. Here’s a couple pics of my swimbait choice for the past couple weeks.

I can see that things are starting to change, and the fish have started to feed a little more as the water slowly warms into the 50’s. There have been a few exceptions when targeting these stagers on secondary points and every once in a while, I’ll pop a good fish up shallow. These fish up shallow that I’ve been catching are good shaky head fish and here’s my bait of choice when targeting stagers on secondary points.

I’m still using a Zman Big TRD on a 1/4 ounce Boss jig head, mainly because the Boss jig head has a great keeper for the soft plastic baits from Zman. I suggest changing the colors of the bait every once in a while, until you find a good one. Yesterday when I was out, I ran up north and targeted some points along the river channel and found a few nice ones on the shaky head. Usually I’m making very long casts with the shaky head, longer casts than the LiveScope can reach out to so I’m pretty much blind casting the staging areas to start with. Once I get closer, I can scope it, but the first few casts are blind casts. I can’t say enough about my worm rig for these bigger fish. This is my second year of using it for the heavy work and the Shimano Stradic 2500 coupled with a Shimano Zodias 7’2″ medium fast rod is the bomb. I’m using 20lb Cast braid, which, by the way, is the reason I can make these longer casts with the worm. The Cast braid gives me more distance than any other line I’ve ever used. I’m using an 8-foot Seagar fluorocarbon leader and joining it to the braid with my Jimberto knot.

Yesterday afternoon I was fishing a staging area just off the river channel and after a long bombing cast with the shaky head, I felt a little tap and set the hook on my first 5lber in the new Skeeter.

Right before I caught it, I was thinking about how long it may take before I catch another 5lber and sure enough, not long after the good Lord answered my question and blessed me with the one pictured above to make my day.

I’m sure in the coming days I’ll be able to mix in more moving baits like the crankbaits, spinnerbaits and chatterbaits but for right now I’m focused on the swimbait and the worm as my two go-to baits of choice. I can see that the water temps are rising ever so slightly right now, and the corps has started generating 10-12 hours in a 24-hour period. Because of the heavy generation periods right now the lake is trending downward and we’re just a hair below full pool. Look for things to continue to pick up over the next few weeks as we get closer to the next full moon and more fish move up to the shallower areas. Here’s a few fish from the last two weeks in the new Skeeter.