By Ronnie Parris
Hey folks, I hope all is well. It’s that time of year again where you are shifting gears to keep up with the fish. We are just coming off of one of the best shoreline bites ever. The spotted a smallmouth bass bite was off the chain this year and as usual you go from catching 30 one day to 8 or so the next, your left scratching your head wondering what you’re doing wrong. Simple answer is nothing there just not there anymore. They’ve moved out in deeper water and more open water to rest up a recoup from the spawn.
This is what we call the transition period. It can be great or slow depending on moon phase and weather, but I love it. I swap boats and grab my trolling tackle. You may catch a mixture of species, and I may be multiple depths so I troll downriggers dipsey divers flat lines and planner boards to cover every level these fish can hide in my target species range from rainbow brown a steelhead as far as trout to spotted and smallmouth bass with the occasional crappie yellow perch threw into the mix.
Lures vary from day to day, but I usually have spoons small divers such as flicker shad and also small Repalas. But really any minnow imitations will work. As far as depth I’m hitting from a foot deep to whatever my deepest fish I’m marking on my fish finder. If I had to pick a magic depth to catch everything it would probably be 30 ft Watch for a thermocline fish tend to hang out close to it. As far as speed I stay between 1.5 and 2 miles per hour but occasionally you will hit schooling fish and just want to stop and cast to these fish.
This is an awesome time to take kids out because it’s usually warm and the bites usually good. So, there it is when the bank bite slows just hit the water and watch that fish finder. Have fun, be safe and, as always, take a kid fishing.