By Capt. James McManus
Timing…it’s a constant in everything we do. Sometimes it’s something we can control, but there are times when we have only reactions at our disposal. Even within those confines we have choices to make that are time sensitive. When summer rolls around, things we guides have to consider include starting and stopping times, day choice based on which lake we fish and most especially, the timing of the dinner bells of our little finned friends. There are lakes I fish that if you are going to do well, you had better be on the water before daylight and at around 10 or 10:30 am, regardless of almost any other factor, you are done for the day as far as catching goes. Hartwell is one of those lakes, stripers feed early and totally disappear once that old sun gets up in the sky. This works out because the heat in upstate SC can be overbearing by midday. Fontana on the other hand can be a little more angler friendly in midsummer. Many of our fish move out and suspend in mid-channel during the day and continue to bite even on very hot days.
Trolling is the best way to take advantage of this scenario. We typically set up with at least three to four methods for reaching fish. You almost always have some breaking fish early. They may be against a bank or in the middle of an open area like the junction of the Tuck and Little Tennessee. To best intercept these fish, we do two things, first we put shallow running plugs like flicker shad or Rapala Jerkbaits on side planers to cover a lot of ground. This ups our chances of running into the roving small schools of spotted bass that are chasing little schools of threadfins or now, Bluebacks that are scattered on the surface. The other depends on the abilities of our clients, but we put them on the front of the boat with either jigs, jerkbaits, or spoons to cast directly at breaking fish. Talk about timing, if you throw more than 5 seconds behind a break or are off on your cast by more than a couple of feet, your chances of getting bit drastically falls off. On a good number of trips, about half of the fish caught will be caught by the anglers up front. Both spots and even bigger Smallies can be taken this way. Folks from lower elevations can’t believe it but we catch tons of bass in over 200 feet of water, it’s just a summertime thing.
As the day wears on, some of the fish will naturally move deeper in the water column and that means either downriggers, leadcore, dipsy divers, or a combination of all of the above. If you stop seeing breaks, pay more attention to your sonar and continue to search in the same general area as before. Match the depth of your baits with what you are seeing on the screen. Downriggers are the easiest, as to precise depth control, but with practice and experimenting, you can also get good results with less precise methods. Changing tactics or concentrations on different methods will depend on timing, based on observations of what the fish are doing. If you ignore timing factors, you could be totally out of the loop: For example, I wanted to watch the Braves’ west coast game late last night so I didn’t get on the water till 10 AM, first chance missed. I love to catch fish by casting, but by the time I got to my spot, the surface bite was about done. Cast away, but blind casts don’t get many acorns. I also like to cast jigs to the banks for bass, but you are a whole season off and, cast away, but most fish are a hundred yards behind you. So, my advise is to pay attention to what the fish are doing, get out early so you can see for yourself and as time goes on, be aware of the progression of what they might be doing. Many folks this time of year opt to night fish and have a lot of success doing so, but at my age, I just cannot spend after dark hours fishing and function very well for several days after. Have a safe and wonderful summer, enjoy God’s gift and call if you want to time some catching. Later, Capt. James
Capt. James McManus is the Owner of 153 Charters. Give him a call for a great day of boat fishing!
