Fishing this week has been fantastic for crappie. I fished a half day yesterday with customer Earl and Trip Moore. We caught around 80 crappie. Our fish all hit tube jigs at 2-15 foot. depths. This action will continue on through to February. Water temps are still holding around 49-50 degrees which is perfect for winter crappie fishing. The Forecast for next week is still a mild forecast which should keep em biting. Lanier striper action has been a little slow. I caught a couple on urigs this week but the action is not what it was before the big rain. Some folks are still catching a few downlake fishing live trout on downrods. The areas on the North end of the lake that were holding fish have muddied up a bit and will take a few days to settle. I am heading up to Hartwell next week my guide buddy Preston Hardin has been tearing the stripers and hybrids up. We are going to Hartwell to check out that action. Hartwell is always about 3 degrees warmer than Lanier which is why they are still turned on up there. I will report back on our trips next week.
Went striper fishing today with customer Jeff Furlong. We had a good day boating 12 sripers in the 8-15 pound range. All our stripers hit umbrella rigs trolled at 15-18 ft. depths. We had good action from around 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. with a lull in the middle of the day. Later that afternoon around 4:00 – 5:30 we hit em again. The water temperatures are holding in the high 40′s to low 50′s which is perfect for umbrella action. In this water temperature range the umbrella will really trigger a lot of strikes. I saw a couple of guys catch a few stripers on bait but urigs seem to produce the best right now. Look for feeding seagulls to put you in the areas the stripers are holding. They are as reliable as a good sonar unit. If you can plan your fishing around these winter fronts coming in you can really smack em good. My best days the past few weeks have been the day before the winter system arrives. On a couple of trips in the last few weeks we boated over 20 stripers the day before the fronts hit. Crappie are still biting very good. January and February is a great time to fill your cooler with good tasting slabs. I will be out later this week and will report back soon.
Went out yesterday with Pastor Billy Woods and friends on a full day striper trip. Striper action was excellent . We caught lots of fish and quite a few good ones. The largest we boated yesterday was around 15 pounds. Most fish averaged in the 6-10 pound range but we fought one monster fish for several minutes but got slack in the line and he shook off. Got to keep steady pressure on stripers when hooked on u rigs. With all the weight of the rig they can shake the hook easily and also the urigs will tear the hook out of there mouth if you horse em to much. I think we ended up with around 19 stripers. Water temperatures yesterday ranged from 49-51 degrees. That is perfect for urig action. This pattern should continue on into late January if we don’t have any extreme weather. I will be out today and will report back later this week.
The crappie action is on. I went out yesterday with buddie John Whimpy from J.W. trucks in Buford. We launched the boat around 10:00 a.m. and fished till around 3:30. We ended up with a little over 50 of the nicest crappie Ive seen come out of Lanier in a while. The size of the crappies have been much larger than average so far. Crappie sizes run in cycles from year to year and it seems like we ar gonna have lots of big ones this season. All of the fish caught hit tube jigs at 5-20 ft. depths. Striper fishing is still good also. With the mild winter this year water temps. are still hanging around 50 degrees which is good for winter striper action. Most the stripers are hitting u-rigs trolled through huge schools of bait in the main creek and river channels. Live trout and gizzard shad on planner boards and flatlines will produce striper now also. Fishing patterns should remain the same through January. Dont miss the action.
Fishing for stripers was excellent last week. We caught good fish everyday with some of our largest fish going around 17-18 pounds. This time of year several patterns will work on the stripers. Early we are catching fish pulling live trout or gizzard shad on flatlines and plannerboards. The umbrella rigs are starting to produce action also. I had some buddies that caught them last week pulling u-rigs. The u-rigs work well when water temps get into the mid to low 50′s which is where the temps are right now. Downrods with trout have been working later in the afternoons. I have been consistently catching stripers late in the day using live trout at 25-30 depths fishing over schools of bait fish. These patterns should continue on for the rest of the month. Dont miss out on this action. I will be out this week and will report back soon.
Went out on a full day charter yesterday with Bobby Ammons . We ended up with 7 stripers in the 8-15 pound range. All our fish hit medium trout on downrods at around 40-50 foot depths. We saw quite a few fish on the sonar that day just to only catch the 7 stripers we boated. This time on year you have to be patient if your on a school of fish. They are usually not as aggressive as when you find them in large schools during summer months and you may need to sit on em a while until they turn on. There is usually a majic hour when they feed like crazy during colder winter months and you have to wait em out. Most of the peak activity yesterday was after 11:00 am. We hit a good school around 4:30 and were able to catch 2 of our best fish before we called it quits. I will be out next week and will report back soon.
Striper actions is still good on south end of Lanier. Usually November and December the stripers start to migrate up the Lake and concentrate in the Gainesville areas of Lake Lanier. This year things seems a little different as we are seeing most of the fish now below Browns Bridge and as far south as Baldridge Creek.
Plannerboarding and freelining large live trout are taking the stripers quite well. If you can get gizzards they will produce good action also. To locate the stripers now look for loons working in the schools of bait and seagulls feeding on the surfacing schools of bait. This pattern should continue on into December but I look for the North end to turn on soon.
Crappie has still been good. We have been averaging around 50 fish on a trip. I will be out later this week and will report back soon.
Striper action on Lanier is starting to improve. Its been a tough month for the stripers as the lake is still in the turnover stage. As the water temps drop into the mid 50′s the stripers should get more predictable and move into the main creeks on the upper end of Lanier.
This week I have seen lots of schooling action in the afternoons. This weeks overcast days triggered surface feeding stripers. Keep an eye out for the birds and loons to locate areas stripers are holding in. I saw some of the best schooling action Ive seen all fall yesterday afternoon before this front came in. The fish stayed up for hours schooling. We manage to catch 4 good fish out of the schooling fish that were in the 10 pound range. The fish were really keyed in on small threadfin shad and they were tough to hook up. We finally boated 2 stripers on zara spooks and a couple others on planner boards with live trout. It was good to see so many fish again. It was fun to watch them in a frenzy even though they were finicky.
Crappie have started to bite a little bit. I usually never fish for them until around January but heard some reports of some good catches. Went out last week one day for the crappies and boated around 50 or so which is not bad for November.
I will be back out the rest of the week and will report back soon.
Posted in big stripers, crappie
Tags: fish, lake, overcast days, planner boards, Report, schooling fish, stage, threadfin shad, water, zara spooks
Fishing for stripers is at its peak. We are catching big stripers and big numbers. We boated one fish last week that weighed right at 30 pounds and had several days that we boated over 30 fish. Live Bluebacks fished at 60-80 ft. depths are producing the best for the stripes. Today was a little tough because of dropping water temps. from last weekends freak cold front. We managed to boat around 10 good fish but we had to search a little harder today to locate active schools. The warmer weather expected this week will get the stripers right back to biting. I have been running morning and afternoon trips and will do so through September. We have been having a good morning bite starting around 9:00 a.m. to noon. Activity has been very good in the afternoons also when power generations starts at Buford Dam. The water release will always trigger a afternoon feed so make sure to check generation times with the Corps of Engineers office at 770-945-1466. Dont miss the great summer action.
Posted in big stripers, late summer, summer
Tags: active schools, afternoon, afternoon trips, Bluebacks, engineers office, fish, generation times, peak, water, water release
