by Eric Crowley
Water temperature: 85 degrees, lake level: full pool, clarity: 7 feet on surface.
Deep, deep, deep. If you like to fish deep drop shots, downlines, big spoons, jigs, lead core or anything else that’s designed to fish the bottom of the water column, now’s the time. It seems that just about every fish in the lake of any size is below 40-50 feet after sunrise and will pretty much stay there all day.
This time of year I switch from fishing locations to targeting fish I see on the sonar. I use the zoom function on graph and turn the sensitivity up a bit and slowly work the edges of timber and the main river channel. With the zoom feature you will see the slightest movements of the fish on the bottom, or you will find a school of fish mixed in the timber just hanging there blending in with the trees.
This is where it gets fun. Grab either the Ben Parker Magnum Spoon, a jig like a bucktail with a trailer or a live bait and send it down to the depth where you marked the fish. Working the bait just above the trees will drive the fish nuts, and they will either rush up to get it or totally ignore your offerings. If you don’t see a change in movement or behavior of the fish after your bait is in the zone, move on to another group of fish. Sometimes I will make a waypoint and come back to these fish later. It’s always worth checking back and trying again. I like 14 pound mono on my big spoons and jigs this time of year. If they won’t eat that, you can try dropping down line size and hooking up a live bait. This pattern will hold true with most of the targeted species on Carters right now including stripers, spots and walleye.
The river bite has been decent above the big island. Fish are a little shallower upriver but still holding on the timber lines and sharp bends staying in the cooler water. We caught several stripers and a few nice hybrids in the mouth of the Ridgeway boat ramp cove as well as some nice walleye a little closer to the ramp recently deep dropping live baits. Remember, your live baits won’t last long at those depths, so check and change them often.
The nighttime catfish bite is on fire. Loading coolers with channels and blues can make for a good time and a good fish fry. Live baits, dead bait, it doesn’t really matter. Some nights I believe they will eat anything they can. Anywhere guys are catching bait there is catfish in the general area.