Lake Lanier is at 1069.64 (-1.36 feet below full pool), with water temps between 44 and 47 degrees. These temps in the mid 40s hopefully will stick around for a few weeks and are a welcome sight as we should have a bait die off that the lake needs in my meager opinion. Lanier has a tremendous amount of bait and it is great for the stripers and every other game fish on the lake, but it keeps the fish from moving around very much and makes it more difficult on fishing. It’s tough getting a striper to want to eat a herring in the midst of thousands of other ones. The old mantra of find the bait and you will find the fish just isn’t true on Lanier, because there will be tons of bait just around the next corner.
The main lake is clear and gets a slight stain as you get to the backs of the creeks. The winter schools of stripers are getting larger and larger as the water cools into the mid 40s and the bait gets pushed father into the back of the creeks. The creeks on the north end of the lake like Ada, Gainesville, and Little River have more fish than the southern creeks like Bald Ridge, Six Mile, Shoal, and Big, but don’t count those southern creeks out because there is nowhere near the amount of pressure on them. First thing in the morning look for huge schools of bait in 60-90 feet of water half way to quarter of the way back in the creek channel. Most of this bait will be within 15-20 feet of the bottom and you will see fish on your Humminbird SOLIX either mixed in with the fish or even slightly higher. Start your day off pulling a mix of herring, trout, and shad on flat lines and Capt Mack’s Perfect Planer Boards with a ¼-1/2 oz StriperTackle.com swivel weight about 4 feet in front of the bait over these scattered fish at .8-1 mph. Pull these baits 25-75 feet back depending on the depth of water you are fishing. Also keep a Capt Mack’s Mini Mack out the back of the boat, or behind a board, about 25-35 feet down in your spread. This speed seems to be the best to get those blades spinning and putting off a great shimmer and vibration. StriperTackle.com also has ¼-1/2 oz Pro Ultra spin heads that will add some more flash and weight to your Mini Mack to keep them down easier at those speeds. The trusty white is a staple, but the blue with a chartreuse 3 inch shad body is awesome in places there is a bit more stain to the water. Once you start seeing the fish group up, go ahead and pull the boards in and put out your down lines with the same baits. Most of the suspended fish will be slower, as the sun comes up, to take your bait up in the water column, but there will be fish below that will eat that trout when you get him down within the last 10 feet of water you are in. StriperTackle.com Jigging Spoons will be another artificial to use in February when you get around big groups of fish. Fish these spoons vertically around stripers and spots that are close to the bottom. Drop and lift these 5/8-1 oz white/silver or chrome spoons in a sweeping motion up and then let them flutter back down to the bottom. Lots of times the fish will eat it on the fall, so pay lots of attention to any change in the look and feel of your line.
If you are not a fan of the cold try getting out in the afternoons and look for the fish to be shallower as the bait moves towards the back of the creeks and up onto rocky points as the water warms slightly. We will spend some afternoons in February pulling big baits (10-15 inch shad) on Perfect Planer Boards up on the bank in 5-10 feet of water looking for just one big fish. You will not catch a lot of fish, but you have a shot at a big one this month.
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