by Eric Crowley
Water temperature: high 60s, lake level: full, clarity: 5 feet
The stripers and hybrids have been doing exactly what they should be doing for this time of year, and that’s eating. Look for the hungry fish from the backs of the creeks out to the points depending on the time of day. In the early mornings, they seem to be in the very back chasing herring and big threadfin. Typical spread of 2 to 4 planers, flat lines and at least one down rod at 25 feet is the standard right now. I like to run my baits from 25 to 75 feet back. After you find what is getting bit, adjust the rest accordingly. We have seen some nice striper and hybrids this spring with some really fat, healthy fish coming to the boat to be released.
The spotted bass bite has been better then I’ve seen in a few years. We have put more big spots in the boat this past month than I thought was possible. For all of May, there was a fish on every piece of shoreline structure and submerged structure for us while fishing live bait on circle hooks. Lots of 2 and 3-pound fish, but what really has been impressive is the number of true 4-pound fish we have seen. If you are not into live bait, the artificial bite has been good. Swimbaits, drop shot setups, flukes and jigs have all brought in nice fish this past month.
The walleye bite has been decent from day to day. One day you can catch 5 and the next day none. We caught them on live shad and flukes the past few weeks with the bigger fish coming on live bait. Shallow at night and deeper in daylight is their style. Look for them from 3 to 30 feet before lunch, then they go deep and disappear not to return till dark again.
The big post-spawn catfish bite has been solid with fish up to 32-pounds being caught and released this past week. We fish for these big fish day and night with all kinds of techniques you can read about next month as I’ll go into detail about how we do it.