March 14, 2012
The last few weeks have been crazy as far as the weather goes and it has the fish going crazy too! A warm trend arrives and they are moving up and near spawning beds everywhere and then a cold front comes through and they are backed off again and not sure where to relocated cause the lake water level is dropping every day. It is playing havoc on the fish and the fisherman. The fish catching consistency is there on guide trips with 20+ fish days nearly every outing and bass up to 7lbs. I had a trip early this week where we caught 60 fish in a dawn to dusk adventure. So the bass are there, but moving around a lot with the constant changing conditions. The water temps are in the low 60’s now since we recovered from last weekend’s cold front. The lake water level has dropped down to approx. 1097ft above sea level which makes it right at 20 feet low. It looks like the weather will stabilize for the rest of this week’s spring break which will help anglers catch more fish!
Current Patterns -
Shallow: Fish continue to be in the very backs of creeks and on or around spawning beds in 1-5 feet of water. Fishing around creeks, drains and flats that have hydrilla is the most productive pattern. I am finding the squarebill bite to continue its effectiveness and the plastic bite with El Grande Lures Hatch-Match sticks is heating up with more fish moving to the spawn phase. The swimbait bite has been a little off the past week or so but should heat back up with more consistent water temps over 60 degrees in our future.
Mid-Depth: The spinnerbait bite is good on windy and cloudy days while the plastics bite in the 10-20 foot zone is picking up some of the larger females in pre spawn locations like points and creek channel bends near spawning flats.
Deep: I have recently been catching some staging on bluff walls outside of small main lake pockets. I have been targeting these fish with plastic worms around the 20-35 foot depths.
See you on the Lake,
Kurt
