Randall

I think sometimes the best examples or answers to problems or questions are experiences or stories from your past. Lake Varner used to be a lake with pondweed as the dominant vegetation. It had both threadfin shad and gizzard shad up till around 2007. I knew the lake well and had no problem catching fish there. Then we hit a couple years with very cold winters, drought, and a huge amount of three and four pound hybrids that totaly wiped out the threadfin shad population. On top of that hydrilla started growing and really changed the lake. With all these changes in the lake a lot of people kept fishing the lake and spots they had always caught fish on for 10-15 years but couldn't figure out why they weren't catching fish there anymore. They just kept fishing the same ways and same spots and complaining. Because I had fished other lakes that were more like what Varner was becoming I knew I had to change the way I fished the lake and did so. I still go out to Lake Varner and see the same guys fishing what worked 10 years ago and still complaining. Both the people fishing the way that used to work and myself used our history to decide where and how to fish. The only thing they were/are missing is the WHY. Well what was the why that changed? Threadfin shad are more of a deepwater pelagic type fish where gizzard shad after they reach a larger size feed more on the bottom and relate more to shallow areas creeks and flats. Growth rates and adult sizes are different as well. After the threadfin shad were gone alot of steep deepwater banks and points that used to hold fish didn't hold fish or a many fish anymore. If there were fish there they were tough to catch. There just wasn't enough deepwater schools of shad roaming over and off those points anymore to hold the fish that used to live there. Then the hydrilla spread and made some the shallower areas of the lake that never held many fish more productive while choking out some other areas that used to be good. The grass created structure in some spots where there was none before and moved or scattered fish that used to stack up somewhere else. I used my "History" of fishing other lakes as well as that lake and was able to draw from my past experiences to adjust and find new or different spots and ways to fish. The people using the "History" of only a few locations and techniques on that lake that worked in the past are still wondering what happened because they are missing what changed and never understood WHY the fish were there and they were catching them in the first place.

I went back and looked and since April if I add all the trips and number of big fish over seven pounds together I get a fish over seven pounds for each trip caught by someone fishing in my boat with anywhere one to three people fishing at a time. Most times there are two people fishing. Of course some of those trips we didn't get any big fish and some of those trips we got two or three big fish. About half the trips were on known big bass lakes where a big fish is no big surprise unless is is over ten pounds. The other half were on lakes with very few big fish in comparison to the number of small fish. On most all the trips the main focus was to try to get big fish both by bait choice, technique and by location. All of the lakes except one were between 250 and 800 acres. The other lake was Lake Allatoona which is known to be tough for big fish and I got two big fish there in two trips one seven and one eight pounder. I live on a small private lake full of small stunted fish and very few good ones. I didn't include those in the numbers above but I got four seven pounders out of ten short trips out on a boat. The rest of the trips were all fish under two pounds with most being about 3/4 of a pound. Last summer/early fall I had nine trips out of ten with a seven pound or better fish all on the same lake which is a known big bass lake. The other trip I zeroed. Most of those trips we had an eight to ten pounder.

Here are a couple big bass I caught at Lake Varner last Sunday. First one hit a High Power Herring swimbait as I called my shot as we fished out behind Chris at Tech. Chris tells me not to make him look bad catching fish behind him at the ramp as he is heading out from the ramp. About an hour later I find Chris fishing near an area where I knew there were some big fish the day before that I couldn't catch. As I went by him we hadn't caught a fish yet. We got just past his boat out deeper behind where he was fishing and I started joking with him about how I was getting ready to catch a big one. Had to yell at him to turn around as I set the hook. I really just got lucky as the fishing wasn't near good enough to call my shot but it was funny to see from our boat at least. the guy I was with and myself then fished for hours without another bite then I got a few fish and bites here and there on swimbaits, and toads as I tried my best to make the trip a learning experience since the fish weren't really tearing it up. We ended up fishing the entire lake and by the end of the day hadn't caught many fish. I was getting ready to load up the boat at the ramp and had an idea to fish a spot where I had seen a couple really big bass follow my swimbait. I asked the guy I was with if he wanted to run to another spot and fish it for an hour or so. He was fine with it so I went to the spot and start seeing the depthfinder full of fish and bait. We made about three casts on the spot and I set the hook and the fish doesn't move on the hookset. I just hold on and the fish swims to deeper water only jumping once. I see the fish start swimming back down to deeper water on the depthfinder just off the bottom where it might get hung up on stumps but below the thermocline and just hold it there straight under the boat until it just gives out and comes up. First time I can ever remember using the thermocline to help wear out a big bass. But it worked pretty well. Thanks to Chris at Tech for putting up with our jabbing at him. Thats the second fish over nine pounds we have caught right where he was fishing this summer so I had to give him a hard time. Here are the photos of the fish. They really don't do either fish justice but both fish were worn down pretty bad so we had to be careful on keeping the fish too long in the hot water. We didn't weigh the first fish because of that but did weigh the second fish and it weighed 13lbs with a little adittional weight from a rope we had it attached to tied to the side of the boat. Both fish were over 27 inches long with the mouth closed and compressing and moving the tail to get the longest length.

Really thats a pretty slow pace until I got to the target area. As slow as the tail would kick on the bait. Low gear ratio reel I was using differnt sizes and types of line to control the depth from 16 to 25 feet and was throwing into 25 to 40 feet in most cases I was throwing out in to deeper water suspended fish and pulling the fish to the structure by getting them to follow the swimbait to the target area. The bait hits the bottom in the area or in some cases I just know I am close to the target area. So when I get there I just either rip the bait like on the last fish or start changing speeds and direction with the reel. I caught four ripping the bait on back to back casts on the last spot and all were over four pounds. All those fish hit on the rip right as the bait stopped and I had to reel down to catch up then set the hook. I would also do the same things if I felt a fish bump the bait out over open water and would catch a fish here and there that way.

My experience is when the state of GA fertilizes the small lakes the bites drop off during the week following the fertilization. They have also caused fish kills doing this in summer a few times in the past and from my experience they often do more harm than good. If I know they have just fertized I fish somewhere else. After about a week enough fresh water comes into most of the lakes even though the water may still be off color the fish will bite. During a drought like we are having now it may take a little longer but low O2 levels are usually the bigger problem and not the water color.

I haven't posted in this section in a while. I havent' been fishing as much as I used to over the past year after having our fourth child late last year. This summer I have made a few trips out to Bear Creek Reservoir in Northeast Ga and have been getting around twenty fish a day on mostly jigs and swimbaits. Here is a video I made showing how I have been catching most of the fish. I have been using a lot of different swimbaits but most have been on the Osprey top hook talons in the six and seven inch sizes. This is some fun fishing when you can get a bunch of fish eating the baits like this.

Congrats!

Your best bet for smallmouth is Lake Blueridge in North Georgia. Spotted bass have replaced a lot of smallmouth and largemouth over the years so very few smallmouth lakes are left here.

I use both. I use EWG type hook when I have to have the big gap on a shorter shank on a shorter bulky bait like a tube. Straight shank will have a higher hookup land ratio though than an EWG with the same size gap so it's my choice most of the time.

I just took a lot of the photos of the older model baits off the site since the baits have changed and will add some more colors as I paint them. Prices have been added to my site today. Weight is between 1oz and 1 1/2oz depending on the model. I haven't weighed the new models for exact weights but that was the old model weights and the ones I am making now are slightly lighter than the old models.

Use to catch them sometimes from Lake Hartwell when I fished there more often. I have caught the Rock Bass version as well when I lived in the mountains of North Carolina.

JFrancho's fast sinks were actually the last two fast sinks I made before I stopped making them in the new version. Here is why. Slow sinks in hard baits almost always swim better at slower speeds, jerks, pauses etc. than the fast sinks. Also if you stop a fast sink it sinks like a rock which isn't natural. The newer version of the High Power Herring was made to be a very thin swimbait compared to almost all others to match the actual forage better in profile, get more hookups, and to make a bait where you could buy/carry fewer baits and cover the water with better swimming baits. Since the bait is so thin compared to most other swimbaits it takes very little weight added to get it down. So all you have to do is carry a few different sizes of splitshot to pinch on up the line from the bait and you can fine tune the depth and speed for the bait. This in turn gives you a better swimming slow sink bait that will swim at the depth or even deeper/faster than a fast sink bait. I think yours is the old version but it will still work the same way but just take more weight to get it down.

Don't know about a kill there but it does happen in some lakes in the South. I would suspect the fish died of a combination of stress from trying to get away and low oxygen levels in the deeper water. Fish might have been fine with the low levels of oxygen if they hadn't been hooked. Kills usually happen when fish become "trapped" between layers of water. They stay in the cooler water below and a wide band of oxygen depleted waterforms above them as the deep water starts to run out of oxygen as well.Since they don't swim up through the oxygen depleted layer in the middle they die. The shallow fish are usually fine and the deep "trapped" fish die. I live on a small mostly shallow lake that has a very shallow thermocline right now. Most of the fish are in less than 6 feet of water since the deep water has very little if any oxygen. You see people all the time fishing deep (10-15 feet)out in the lake around the creek channnels since it's hot and they think the fish have to be there. They are not catching any fish since they are fishing below all the fish while you can fish shallow and catch them all day long in 90+ degree water.

If you don't see it from the cast all the way to the net/hand etc. uncut it probably never happend that way.

For me I do best for big bass on 6.5 to 8 inch straight tail worms. I think alot of it has to do with the fact I have to use light line 6-8 lb test to get bit alot of times from the bigger bass. A few days back we had a best five that went around 30lbs with an eight to nine pounder for the largest but fished behind two or three other boats throwing big worms on the spots we fished in water with 10+ feet of visibility. So for me the smaller worms do better than the larger ones because of where I fish. If I go up in line size I go to big senko type baits or jigs unless I am swimming the worm. If I am swimming the worm I use big grubs that are seven to ten inches long.

Now here is another thought on small lakes/ponds. That same small lake from earlier has had two days of rain with some downpours of heavy rain. Thermocline could be breaking up in some or all of it just from the fresh cool muddy water coming in. Water temp has surely dropped. Rain water like that has little oxygen value and the lake turnsover and mixes. I will take the hot stable water with the shallow thermocline over unstable fresh water from rain. Some ponds may even have fish kills from this type of situation. I haven't fished the lake since the rain but that was the thoughts going through my head today after looking at the muddy water downstream going into another lake.

Nothing to worry about. I had a lung infection early in the year that gave me a real rough time but I am feeling great and back fishing now.

Just some thoughts from reading through this and something from my own experience on small ponds and lakes here in GA. Just because the water is shallow doesn't mean their isn't a thermocline. I live on a small lake approx 50 acres that is 15 feet deep at it's deepest point. It has a thermocline at 6 feet right now. All the fish are shallow above six feet but very few stay on the shoreline. Most are suspended over 12 to 15 feet of water most of the day but are holding at six feet deep. At times they move up to the shorelines and feed but since the water is hot they conserve energy most of the day suspended over the deeper water. They live very efficiently when the water is hot and only feed when it is an easy meal or the conditions are perfect. The best places to catch them right now is on the edges of shallow flats that have a break into deeper water at six feet. Best baits for me is anything that stays at six feet or just above and is easy for the fish. I have been doing best and catching larger than average fish by fishing swimbaits that will run at a very slow speed at five to six feet. Jerkbaits and baits under a float are great for these fish too. Look shallow still but suspended over deep water. Depth control is the key and being able to put you bait at the level of the fish so it is an easy target.

Mend it and a regular trickworm = not worth my time. Pack of Zoom H Toads fixed in minutes and I will save over a dollar a minute or $60 and hour. Senkos and Magnum trickworms could go either way. No more lighters and candles for me since Mend-it though.

I just saw a show being discussed on another site where a fifteen pounder was claimed to be caught. The guy who was on the show as the guest said the actual show was not like what he remembered hapening on the water that day and there was no fifteen pounder. I have had shows call me and ask how many big fish I can save up to shoot a show. So, it's real common. That's how most of that business works. On the other hand I did a Lunkerville show with Mike D and we caught a bunch of dinks because that's what we caught. I also did a show this past spring that was shot 100% the way it happened. I plan to do another show with a guy this year and they have agreed to shoot it 100% the way it happens so there are a few shows that are for real out there but these are far and few between. I don't believe anything I see in the fishing world unless I see the whole thing from cast to catch and then see it on a scale.

I add a coat of Devcon 2 ton epoxy with the longer cure time to all my hard swimbaits as soon as I get them. Nothing else compares as far as durability. It's a pain to put on a swimbait at times though because of the joints and the posibility of it getting in the joints and it does add weight to the bait and cause it to sink slightly faster. Also some swimbaits will not do well with epoxy clearcoats and the baits will release gasses causing the epoxy clearcoat to bubble up and come off if it gets hot at all. If the bait doesn't come with any kind of clear coat this may be the reason for it.

I tried a photo but it wouldn't post for some reason. Here is a video of my PB caught on a High Power Herring swimbait. It was a topwater strike with the fish coming out of the water. It was still almost 16lbs a while after it was caught and had spit up a big shad. Had to wait for a buddy to bring me a good scale as I only had a rusty spring scale in the boat.

I don't know that I could help any other than whats been said already. Location is the biggest key and without electronics thats tough to find bigger fish. Just based on what you said I would probably fish the outside edges of the pads with worms, jigs and swimbaits if I were in the same situation.

It is a combination of factors working together. One nobody has touched is nutrition. The bass here that have a shortage of food are often later to spawn or don't spawn at all. It takes a healthy fish to produce,and develop eggs. I have seen lakes where fish came out of winter skinny and unhealthy and the spawn was greatly reduced to the point that it almost didn't happen at all although we had great spring weather. On lakes with fat healthy fish more fish will spawn and they will spawn longer into the season. Another thing I have noticed is that if we have a cold winter the spawn is delayed by a couple weeks. Takes longer for eggs to reach maturity in cold water.

I only carry lizards with me during the spawn.