How to approach this lake

[FishTax]

This is Lake Mackintosh in Burlington, NC, my home lake. I fish a pdl kayak, have an old depth finder, and prefer this stretch because it's electric only so I'm not getting rocked by gas motors all day and can fish more and hang on for my life less... 

 

What stands out to you on the attached depth chart? I feel like this lake is relatively featureless. All wooded, no docks or anything. I've been able to catch them on points and laydowns some, but am looking to expand my skills and approaches. Water temps are in low 80s right now, I'm hoping to get out tomorrow morning, conditions are 5mph wind, sporadic cloud cover, will be in mid-80s by lunch. I like slow fishing, jigs, shaky heads, etc., but have a pretty full tackle box and am open to trying anything. I need some coaching on anything that involves water depth beyond 12', although that may be a different thread topic. 

 

Looking forward to learning from you all. The collective knowledge on this forum blows my mind and I learn so much even though I don't post so much, so thanks to each of you for your contributions!

[Choporoz]

Find the bait.  I am not far from you, and last weekend, aside from a couple off wood, there is little correlation to structure, bottom depth, grass lines...nothing.  The bass are on shad still....a couple more weeks and you can dissect those points and drops.  But for now, find the bait....the depth first and then check surrounding structure, cover, grass, etc.  If you aren't fishing around a ton of bait, you are in for a slow day

[TOXIC]

Depth change edges with a dropshot and weed edges if there are any.  Ned shallow early.  

[FishTax]

3 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Find the bait.  I am not far from you, and last weekend, aside from a couple off wood, there is little correlation to structure, bottom depth, grass lines...nothing.  The bass are on shad still....a couple more weeks and you can dissect those points and drops.  But for now, find the bait....the depth first and then check surrounding structure, cover, grass, etc.  If you aren't fishing around a ton of bait, you are in for a slow day

Last time out, it seemed the bait was suspended about 15' deep in the channels (25-35' water depth) from what I could see on my old depth finder. If that's the case again tomorrow, how would you approach that? I've always thought suspended fish are the hardest to catch, probably a mental block for me. Seems a jig or my other slow confidence baits probably aren't a good fit for that setup. 

 

Also, water clarity is about 2', stained water most of the time out there. Meant to put that in the original post. 

[Choporoz]

Not just mental....suspended fish can be extremely difficult.  You will find that bass suspended beneath baitballs this week aren't always the inactive suspenders you might see in say, December.   Once you determine the bait depth, and that there are fish beneath, you can crank through them, drop spoons to them, and even call up the really active ones with top water baits.

  I am a jig and trig guy, too.  But it was a tough sell the last few weeks.  Pull something moving through the roaming hunters was a better deal.

[roadwarrior]

2 hours ago, Choporoz said:

....suspended fish can be extremely difficult. 

 Not worth the effort for me.

[LrgmouthShad]

Hi

 

Why are you not on Badin? ?

[FishTax]

18 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Hi

 

Why are you not on Badin? ?

A little over an hour drive. If you ever come down and want to go hit me up, I'll meet you there! 

[LrgmouthShad]

@FishTax Bout an hour from where I used to live, too. I get it though. And yes, I will hit you up. The next time I think I might be on Badin would be in December over leave during the holidays, but I may opt for other lakes in the winter.

[FishTax]

3 hours ago, Choporoz said:

Not just mental....suspended fish can be extremely difficult.  You will find that bass suspended beneath baitballs this week aren't always the inactive suspenders you might see in say, December.   Once you determine the bait depth, and that there are fish beneath, you can crank through them, drop spoons to them, and even call up the really active ones with top water baits.

  I am a jig and trig guy, too.  But it was a tough sell the last few weeks.  Pull something moving through the roaming hunters was a better deal.

I've always heard cranks should be grinding on the bottom. If it's 30 fow that's not gonna happen for me, does it make sense to throw like a dt12 to be at bait level or would a keitec on a jig head or chatterbait or something be better? Hitting middle of the column is like a foreign language to me. 

[FishTax]

15 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

@FishTax Bout an hour from where I used to live, too. I get it though. And yes, I will hit you up. The next time I think I might be on Badin would be in December over leave during the holidays, but I may opt for other lakes in the winter.

Anywhere northeast of Badin in the state and I'm in. I like winter fishing in NC, usually enough warm days to be comfortable and I seem to catch my biggest fish in winter. 

[LrgmouthShad]

@FishTax same experience for me. We can talk in PM. As it would be winter, I almost say we should go to any of the heavy hitters around Raleigh. Jordan, Falls, Shearon Harris. It looks like Jordan is the closest to you. Anyway, I don't mean to hijack the thread. We can PM

[FishTax]

Well I got skunked. Found the fish easily, but they didn't like what I was showing them. They were just above the thermocline at about 20', and suspended at about 15' everywhere else. They were hitting surface shad this morning but didn't want a buzz bait or spinnerbait. I'm stubborn so I'll keep trying until I figure out, which is why I was out 5 hours getting cooked until a storm popped up and I had to get off the water. Any other suggestions on presentations would be greatly appreciated! 

[VolFan]

It’s too late now but I’d do a 2.8 keitech in white or a Shad color to get down to them. Or stroke a lipless crank bait or blade bait around and through the bait balls. I’m SW of you in Charlotte but the above works (most of the time) on the Catawba chain. Mixed bag of lm and spots and occasion blue cat and white perch.

[FishTax]

9 hours ago, VolFan said:

It’s too late now but I’d do a 2.8 keitech in white or a Shad color to get down to them. Or stroke a lipless crank bait or blade bait around and through the bait balls. I’m SW of you in Charlotte but the above works (most of the time) on the Catawba chain. Mixed bag of lm and spots and occasion blue cat and white perch.

Thanks! Never too late, I'll be back at then again soon and will try both of these. 

[Choporoz]

I see Carolina Kayak Anglers have a tourney there in a couple weeks.  Might be nice to go down and meet some of them, if you haven't already.   I fished with them a couple times and it is a great club.  

 

   To answer your question about cranking under bait....absolutely.  No sense raking the bottom when the bass are 10 foot off.   I caught one over 6# doing exactly that about this time last year.  The following day, I caught 5 on 5 consecutive casts, just cranking open water under massive bait balls.

[Woody B]

When Bass are busting shad on the surface throw a spoon or lipless crank bait.   Flutter them like an injured shad.  Bass can't resist.  (Don't tell anyone, it's a WB secret).

 

When crankin around balls of shad I try to pick a crank that will run right about the center of the bait ball.   I'll just watch on sonar until something attacks the shad, then put the crank right into the middle of it.   

[FishTax]

11 minutes ago, Woody B said:

When Bass are busting shad on the surface throw a spoon or lipless crank bait.   Flutter them like an injured shad.  Bass can't resist.  (Don't tell anyone, it's a WB secret).

 

When crankin around balls of shad I try to pick a crank that will run right about the center of the bait ball.   I'll just watch on sonar until something attacks the shad, then put the crank right into the middle of it.   

Thanks! I don't have a spoon but have several lipless. When you say flutter, do you mean just let it sink for a few seconds?

 

I could burn a lipless through the shad ball also, right? I've never caught one on any type of crank so I need to build some confidence there for sure before I invest much more beyond my one box that's full of skunk baits! Now I'm excited to try these techniques, thanks guys! 

Funny thing, I saw probably 15 people fishing besides me, everyone else was burning the shallows, I've noticed no one fishes off shore on this lake except crappie guys which seems weird since I can clearly see the bass on my sonar. Everyone also says this lake is really tough, which just motivates me more to catch them!

I'm hoping with these tips I can hit some much less pressured fish and start increasing my numbers each trip. 

 

Thanks again, y'all are the best! 

[Matt Bacola]

I'm going to be in the area this weekend and I'd like to check out Lake Mackintosh on Friday and maybe Monday. Any tips? I'm planning on renting a boat, where's the best place to launch this time of year Guilford? What are they biting? I caught em on Jigs this weekend in Michigan but it looks like the water temp in NC will be about 10 degrees higher. What's the best bet shallow or deep?

[FishTax]

I'm going out this afternoon, will try to follow up when I get home. Last time I was out was about a month ago so I'm sure things have changed, but it seems like they are doing typical fall stuff, moving with the weather and just all over the place so you can sort of junk fish. I'm far from a pro though, so I'll tag @Pat Brown who is another local angler who is a significantly better fisherman than I am to see if he has any thoughts. 

 

Regarding where to launch, there are 2 options, I think either are fine and both have electric only to the right and anything and everything the left out of the marinas. If you are renting a jon boat, do you have a trolling motor to put on it? They don't rent those, so it could be a long day if you are trying to row and I wouldn't really advise that. 

[Pat Brown]

22 hours ago, Matt Bacola said:

I'm going to be in the area this weekend and I'd like to check out Lake Mackintosh on Friday and maybe Monday. Any tips? I'm planning on renting a boat, where's the best place to launch this time of year Guilford? What are they biting? I caught em on Jigs this weekend in Michigan but it looks like the water temp in NC will be about 10 degrees higher. What's the best bet shallow or deep?

 

 

We are in full swing fall mode on our lakes.  You are gonna be looking at fish coraling bit in hard areas and transitions and on flats in the sunlight.  Topwaters, jigs, fast moving reaction baits seem to be very effective around here for me right now.  I'd stay on the sunny side of the lake and look for flatter banks.  You can definitely just hop from point to point in the fall in NC and catch fish, so don't hesitate to just try doing that.

 

Have fun!

[FishTax]

As usual Pat knows better than me, wish I read that before I went out 😎 

With bluebird skies I usually struggle. 

 

I caught one good one on a point on a shaky head today, which is pretty reliable year round in this area for me. All the bait I mapped mid day was deep, more than 20', which is an area in working to improve my skills on. 

 

Mackintosh gets a decent amount of pressure, there were 7 bass boats at alamance Marina when I went today (Wednesday) around noon, which for this time of year and day I thought was a lot. 

 

If you fish Monday, you'll need to do Guilford because alamance Marina is closed on M/Tuesday. Keep us posted!

[Matt Bacola]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:32 AM, FishTax said:

I'm going out this afternoon, will try to follow up when I get home. Last time I was out was about a month ago so I'm sure things have changed, but it seems like they are doing typical fall stuff, moving with the weather and just all over the place so you can sort of junk fish. I'm far from a pro though, so I'll tag @Pat Brown who is another local angler who is a significantly better fisherman than I am to see if he has any thoughts. 

 

Regarding where to launch, there are 2 options, I think either are fine and both have electric only to the right and anything and everything the left out of the marinas. If you are renting a jon boat, do you have a trolling motor to put on it? They don't rent those, so it could be a long day if you are trying to row and I wouldn't really advise that. 

I've got my trolling motor, battery and fish finder ready to go (thanks for mentioning it). Do they provide life jackets or do I need to bring one?

[FishTax]

20 hours ago, Matt Bacola said:

I've got my trolling motor, battery and fish finder ready to go (thanks for mentioning it). Do they provide life jackets or do I need to bring one?

Bring life jacket. They provide seat cushion. 

[bacolmm]

I threw the tackle box at em and got skunked. I saw plenty of fish on my electronics but couldn’t get em to bite. I talked to a couple other anglers on the water and they were saying the same. If you catch em this weekend I’d be curious to know the details (although it appears the weather will be significantly different)