by Ryan Coleman
Spotted bass fishing is good. The lake is 5 feet below full pool and still rising. The surface temps are in the mid 80’s and holding steady. I’d say we are about where we should be for this time of year. It has been raining a lot this summer so the temps have stayed down just a bit.
There is still a good topwater bite at times, and the deep bite is coming on strong. I have been doing a little of everything the past few weeks and pretty much having success at all techniques. On top, there are schoolers early in the day, then you can draw up some fish off the man-made brush piles on a Vixen or Chug Bug. If the wind is going, you can toss the Whopper Plopper and they will still rise to it.
For the suspended fish, I have been doing a combination of an albino 7/16 underspin with a Super Fluke Jr on the back and a green pearl swim jig. The swim jig is much better when they are very aggressive or there is some wind present. For the calmer days, I am sticking with the underspin. Slow roll both baits over flats and man-made brush in 20-30 feet of water.
My best bite has been on the bottom in 35-40 feet of water. A lot of the bigger fish have moved out to the timber edges and are just sitting out there getting fat on the abundance of bait holding in the same depth. You can find big balls of bait out there on your Lowrance if you look around. I have been doing my best on a drop shot but also catching some nice fish on a green craw and brown/purple 3/8 casting jig. For the drop shot, I have been working a small nose-hooked 6″ hand pour with a 3/8 drop shot weight. My best bait has been the SpotSticker 6″ drop shot worm in Cinnamon Purple, Earthworm and Crushed Herring. It has been hard to keep those colors in stock this summer.
Good luck out there!