By Bobby Peoples
Lake Oconee Breeze
LAKE OCONEE —
Weather definitely can play a part in the choices we make for our summer fishing trips. When the temperature hits the mid-90s and stays there for days or weeks, anglers can easily lose their desire to fish. The summer thus far has been unusually hot with very few breaks from the heat.
The excessive heat has warmed the water considerably since June 1 and that has slowed the bite in most middle Georgia reservoirs including Lakes Oconee and Sinclair. The fish will bite in area reservoirs even in these hot conditions but generally the bite is going to be slow during the heat of the day.
Early morning trips can bring some relief from the heat and most often the fish will bite better until the sun is out hot and bright. We have had little cloud cover the last few days and that seems to make it even hotter. The weather we are having now normally occurs later in the summer during the hot and dry days of August.
Fishing is my primary outdoor activity but I can truthfully say that my desire to fish area reservoirs diminishes greatly when the temperature reaches the middle 90s and the heat index is well over 100. I usually do not think about fishing at night until later in the summer but that might be an angler’s best choice right now with the hot daytime temperatures.
Options for angling in area reservoirs include fishing the first two to three hours of daylight or take a nighttime trip and fish dock lights. I have one spot (I cannot say where) in Lake Sinclair that provides a great amount of shade in the late afternoon and it is a spot where the fish will bite. I can’t say exactly where that shady spot is because tomorrow there would be twenty boats trying to fish that one spot.
For those that can handle the heat and still fish, the fish will bite early around docks, boathouses, grassbeds and rocky shoreline. That bite has only been lasting until the sun is out and the fish move to deeper areas or to shady areas. Mayfly hatches have been occurring on area reservoirs and some bass can be caught around those mayflies early in the day on lures like Pop-Rs and flukes.
Once the sun is out, anglers should try to find a school of bass on a point, ledge or hump in water 8 to 20 feet deep and use a crankbait or some type of plastic bait (worm, lizard, Senko, critter) and fish those plastics on a Carolina rig. I have found over the last two weeks that the slower you fish the Carolina rig the better.
Also using fluorocarbon line will add sensitivity and allow you to feel the light bites which are now occurring frequently in deep water areas. The crankbait bite is not very good right now but fluorocarbon line will allow you to better feel the bottom structure and the soft bites if you enjoy casting a deep crankbait around ledges, points and humps.
Hopefully this heat wave will subside and we can return to more normal summertime angling. Short of a break from the daytime heat, you might want to give the dock lights a try at night. Monday through Thursday will fine little to no nighttime boat traffic but weekends are a different story.
If you decide to give the fishing a try at night, then be especially careful and make sure all your safety equipment including boat lights and life jackets are in working order. Around the lake docklights, fish a Texas rigged worm (green pumpkin, red bug, black), a trick worm (blue, black) or a Zoom fluke (pearl).
For those anglers who are turned off to the slow summertime fishing for largemouth bass, the catfish offer a great alternative and fortunately the best feeding times seem to be two hours before daylight until two hours after daylight. Those times equate to the coolest temperatures of the summer day on the lake.
Both Lakes Oconee and Sinclair have three species of catfish and those include flatheads, channels and blues. You can catch a bunch of small channel catfish on nightcrawlers or prepared commercial catfish baits but if you want to the catch the big boys, you need to use either live shad or bream heads.
All the small bream you need for a day of fishing can be caught late in the day around docks or in the early morning around any mayfly hatches which are occurring on both lakes. I strictly use bream heads which the large flatheads, channels and blues love and the little catfish leave the bream heads alone.
If your choice to fish is daytime, just spread on the sunscreen, take along some cold drinks, wear a big hat and fish slow. If nighttime is your choice, then by all means be careful navigating the lake, use plenty of lights if you anchor out your boat and watch out for other boats. Good fishing and see you next week.
—Outdoors columnist Bobby Peoples can be contacted via e-mail at brpeoples@windstream.net.
