The lake level is 1066.58 (4.42 feet below full pool) with water temps around 82-84 and clear water conditions. Summer fishing has been great and there are still some big schools to be found. Trolling lead core or using your Cannon downriggers using the Capt Mack’s Super Spin Shad, Striper Spin, or the Mini Mack will be your best bet for catching stripers this month. The Super Spin Shad in 1.5 or 2 oz sizes will be the better choice for lead core trolling and the 1 oz heads will be the ticket when using your Cannon downriggers. The White/White and the Chartreuse/Chartreuse Shine are the colors to go with. On sunny days the white will be the better color and on cloudier days the chartreuse will typically be the better choice. The 1.5oz CM Underspin Bucktail in white/silver or white/chartreuse and the Mini Mack with blades with red heads and white grubs will be the choices for these lures. All three of these baits should be pulled behind the boat at 2.5-3 mph and 7-9 colors back depending on the depth that you are marking fish on your Humminbird graph. Each color represents approximately 2.5 feet of depth for the Super Spin Shad and Striper Spins and approximately 3.5’ when pulling the Mini Mack. Most of the fish will be scattered on the sides and down the middle of all the creek channels from Big Creek south to the damn in 60-130’ of water. Start looking at where the creek channel intersects the river channel to 1/3 of the way back up into the creek. These intersections are extremely easy to see on your Humminbird Solix or Helix when you are using Lake Master, the greatest map software out there. They will also be on the river channel from 100-150’. When you catch a fish keep your eye on your graph and when you stop the boat to bring your fish in a lot of times the whole school will follow and then you can drop a live herring or chrome/silver flash Boss Hawg spoon to them for an extra bite. Stopping the boat also helps you get the fish in quicker and is better on the fish’s stress. The best part of trolling is that you are actually fishing most of the time you are out instead of just driving around looking for fish that are scattered around the lake. There are quite a few fish that are showing up on 35 foot humps in the same areas that will be easier to target with the Capt Mack U-Rig. Pull these rigs at the speeds, but only run the rigs 120-140 feet behind the boat. These fish will typically show up later in the day, so start checking these areas if you are not seeing the fish on the channels as much. Again, Lake Master will make finding these humps easy as you can use it to highlight certain depth areas with shading that shows just those depth ranges. You can also keep up easier with the lake level drops as it will “redraw” the topo lines as you adjust the lake level throughout the year. The bait bite will still be good, when you find concentrations of fish, and the only changes from Aug will be to concentrate in 90-140’ of water and to increase leader length to 9-11’ of 10# fluorocarbon leader. The herring are not living well on the hook below 30’ so make sure you take plenty of bait if you are going to concentrate on this bite.
Make sure you choose the important over the immediate. Lots of things always come up in our lives and we are tempted to think that they important by the enemy, but they are not. The more we rush and run the less we can be like Christ by being loving, caring, and grace filled. Focus on the things that are really important in your life. Christ, spouse, kids, family are these things and when you do the immediate things in your life will be easier to deal with.