LakesideNews

Lanier Fishing Report

Elevation: 1056.5 or about 14.5 feet below full pool.
Surface temp: About 80 degrees
Clarity: Clear in main lake areas with some color in upper tributaries.

Bass fishing has been good lately. Make sure you are ready with topwater plugs, shakey head worm rigs, and the fish head spin. Most anglers are reporting good topwater action until about 9:30 a.m. Be on your first spot at daybreak and blind cast while looking for surface schoolers. Super Spook Juniors, Sammies, and Chug Bugs are all good picks in natural baitfish colors. Tip: Try a clear plug in a larger size. These don’t create a large profile and cast farther. They are dynamite when the fish are on top. The usual pieces of structure are where the action is. Target points and humps at creek mouths and adjacent to the old channels. Don’t spend much time in one spot if you’re not getting results or seeing action on top. When the fish go down, pick up the Fish Head Spin rigged with a pearl white or albino Super Fluke Junior. Slow roll this back at different depths and finally give it a retrieve just a few feet above the bottom. After mid morning, try this on the points and humps before breaking out your favorite shakey head worm rig. Your favorite color of green is always a good choice. Probe the depths from 25 to 35 feet deep. Seek out places with submerged timber or man made brush piles that attract schools of bass. Believe it or not, anglers have been catching bass shallow as well by fishing the vegetation in the upper portions of creeks and coves. How long this will hold up is anyone’s guess. Try a buzzbait in these areas for an exciting change of pace. Floating worms or small shallow diving crankbaits will also get the job done in the skinny water.

Striper fishing has also been very solid lately. It seems that the summer pattern is pretty well established and not much will change over the next couple of months. Live bait anglers are scoring well by dropping live blueback herring to depths of 30 to 35 deep. Use down rods rigged with 17-pound test main line and leaders of 14-pound test for this application. Separate these with a two ounce swivel sinker. Look for these fish on the same submerged points and humps where you find black bass but deeper. Keeping the boat over a 60- to 70-foot bottom is the standard practice. Submerged timber is much shallower with lower lake levels so ensure you have adequate supplies of hooks and leader line for re-rigging. Trolling an ounce and a half bucktail jig behind eight colors of lead core line is also putting fish in the boat. You can also cover a lot more water this way. If you score over a piece of structure it’s often very productive to move in on the spot with the previously mentioned down rods and live bait. Fishing is good on both the north and south ends of the lake.

Night fishing beats the heat

While the summer season can be great for bass fishing, it’s not without drawbacks. Our lakes are often crowded with pleasure boaters and personal watercraft making it more of a challenge to have a successful day of angling. This factor is especially true during the weekends. As if that were not enough, after 10:30 in the morning, the summer heat can make the day seem more like military survival training than a fishing trip. If you would like to enjoy some great fishing without these factors, consider venturing out in the night. Savvy anglers have been doing this for a long time. When the sun goes down several things happen. Obviously, it gets cooler and being on the lake can be very comfortable. Pleasure boat traffic decreases to an insignificant level. And lastly, the gamefish become less wary and feed more aggressively. All in all, there’s a lot to like about idling away from the ramp for an evening of fishing. While many of the same techniques and baits used during the day work just fine at night, it pays to be aware of a few twists. Silhouette and vibration are key elements in lure selection. While finesse style baits will produce, you’ll catch more and bigger fish using larger versions. These can be detected by bass at greater distances through the lateral lines that run down each side of the body. When it comes to color selection, darker is better. Hues of dark purple, brown, and black are top producers. These will stand out better than traditional light to medium colors and patterns used during the day. One exception to the “darker is better” guideline occurs in lighted areas. In these places a bit of flash or traditional baitfish color that reflects light can be productive. It’s worth noting that lights activate the food chain during hours of darkness drawing in both forage species such as panfish and shad along with the gamefish that prey on them.

Slow roll night spinnerbaits

Crankbaits are great lures to tie on at night. Be sure to choose models that incorporate rattles to create more noise. Fat bodies will produce more underwater vibration than flat sided versions. It can be very difficult to find these diving plugs in really dark colors. A trip to the local hobby shop can solve this. Pick up small cans of paint in black, dark purple, or whatever looks good to you. Remove the hooks and split rings from your lures and cover the clear lip with masking tape. It’s a good idea to cover the hook hangers with tiny bits as well. You can do this for the eyes also. Use a hole punch to create round pieces of tape. If they’re not perfect in the end you can touch up areas with a black marker pen. Suspend the prepared crankbaits with a loop of fishing line through the tie and apply a couple of light and even coats of paint. When they’re dry, spray on a light coat of clear polyurethane. You could also add various colors of glitter during this phase. Allow a day or so for the coating to properly dry and replace the hardware. You now have your own custom night baits. Other lure categories are a bit easier to find in dark colors. When it comes to spinnerbaits, stick to the models outfitted with a single Colorado style blade. As you may remember from last month’s spinnerbait article, this produces maximum vibration. Models with black blades and dark skirt colors are readily available. You may want to look for Terminator’s Night Bait or the time tested Rattlin’ Midnight Special by Strike King. The Moon Talker by BooYah is also a great choice. It’s available in a ? ounce model that excels in deeper water. When you cast out a spinnerbait, allow it to sink all the way to the bottom on a tight line. When the descent ceases, give it a lift and slow roll the lure along the bottom; crawl it over any cover you encounter. Plastic worms are proven night killers as well. Forget about that slender daytime favorite the shaky head rig and reach for big plastic instead. I’m talking about 10- to 12-inch ribbon tail worms that probably resemble small snakes more than anything else in the water. Black is probably the only color you really need. The 10-inch Power Worm by Berkley is an excellent choice. It’s special formula requires no addition of scent products. Bass latch onto these and just don’t want to let go. Culprit and Zoom both offer large ribbon tail worms as well. When rigging plastics, remember to insert one or more rattle chambers into the body for added attraction. The standard Texas rig is the best option for the worm since you’ll probably be casting around cover. A one quarter ounce sinker is a good match for this large chunk of plastic.

Do the Jitterbug

Those are the standard baits for a night fishing but there are some sleepers out there as well. These days topwater fishing at night is largely overlooked. It’s tried and true over the decades on smaller waters and will work for anglers fishing large reservoirs as well. If you really want to go old school and catch some bass tie on a black jointed Jitterbug by Arbogast. Choose the 5/8th ounce model. Give this plug a steady retrieve in the shallows or near docks allowing it to burble along the surface. Bass can home in on this from great distances. Buzz baits are also overlooked when the sun goes down. Pick one with a black skirt and double blades. The latter feature allows for a slower churning retrieve along the surface. I would certainly recommend the relatively new hybrid jigs with blades on the forefront. The Chatterbait was the original but several others are available on the market these days. They combine the best features of both a jig and a crankbait. These and buzzbaits are both “bank to boat lures.” By now you know the colors to pick. Speaking of jigs, these are also great at night. Rig up with rattles made for the lure and a plastic twin tail trailer. The Fat Albert Twin Tail by Zoom is a great one to add on. You can crawl the jig along the bottom or swim it back at various depths. Unless casting to the shallows, the general rule of thumb is to get your bait on or close to the bottom. Lighted areas are once again an exception as gamefish will hover at all depths as long as cover is close by. No one talks about fishing soft plastic jerk baits at night but you might want to give the Super Fluke by Zoom a go. Grab a pack of the darkest color available (green pumpkin I think) and be sure to add a rattle in the body aft of the hook bend. This will be a new look in the darkened predatory environment of your quarry. Do you remember the Johnson Silver Minnow spoon you probably fished as a kid? This weedless wonder is available in all black which goes great with a black split tail trailer. The action is nothing short of superb. I don’t know of anyone who has tried this one at night but something makes me keep thinking about it. If you’re keeping this a secret let me know. I promise not to tell.

Lights are bass magnets

When looking for likely areas at night, points, humps, and docks are all worthy. Be flexible when it comes to depth because deep water fish will often move shallow when the sun goes down. Alternatively, be prepared to probe the depths down to 25 feet as well. Target the shallows first and move deeper on each prominent feature until a pattern is established. As mentioned earlier, lighted areas can be night time hot spots. Places that receive light on a consistent nightly basis are always worth your attention. You’ll soon come to know the docks that have lights operating on a nightly basis. Marinas with their multiple lighted areas are often big time fish magnets. It’s not uncommon to see large schools of bass cruising these areas looking for any forage they can pounce on. Before venturing into marinas be sure it’s OK to fish and respect any signs indicating otherwise. Well kept night fishing secret spots are boat ramps. Although it sounds a bit weird, think about it. Every ramp has a hollowed out area at the base from prop wash. These offer a rapid depth change and hiding place for gamefish. Shad, herring, and other forage species are often found in good numbers near ramps as well. The concrete and adjacent rip rap support many forms of life creating abundant feeding opportunities for bass. Some anglers have made consistent money in night tournaments by running the boat ramps along with other prime areas. Bottom line: if you’re close to a boat ramp invest some casting time to the drop off and both sides. When you’re out at night, one accessory can really come in handy. This is a head lamp with both a white and black (UV) light. The former is always handy when changing lures or doing just about anything else. The latter is great when using a clear fluorescent line that reacts to the light. Clear blue fluorescent is the time honored choice. It’s great during the day presenting a slight blue color above the surface as is becomes invisible underneath. At night under UV light, it appears fat and blue allowing an angler to track line position and subtle strikes.

Before venturing out after dark, take a few safety tips into consideration. Be sure you are familiar with the area to be navigated. Ideally you’re already experienced from day time trips in the area. If not, go out during the day for a getting up to speed scouting session. Go with a partner. Having an extra set of eyes and ears on deck is especially valuable during the hours of limited visibility. Let your folks at home know where you’re launching and when you expect to return. Leave a note on the refrigerator. Ensure you’re navigation and stern lights are working and keep them on at all times. A spot light is handy for finding the reflective reef poles that mark submerged humps. Use the tool for this purpose along with spotting channel markers sparingly. Constant use will cause tunnel vision and actually impair your night vision. Once the eyes adapt, you’ll be surprised at how much can be seen with no light. Lastly, wear (yes I mean wear) a PFD at all times. The compact and super comfortable self inflating models make that responsibility a pretty easy one these days. That’s a good idea during the day as well.

That’s about it for this month. Summer is the traditional time for night fishing in our parts. It offers a great and productive change of pace from those July an August days on the water. Put your boat in the water as the sun goes down. Or for that matter, hit your favorite bank fishing spot as well. You may find yourself becoming a regular on the night shift. Until next month, take care and enjoy the lake!

Tommy Wilkinson is assistant manager for Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Duluth. E-mail Tommy at tommy@lakesidenews.com