Lake Lanier Fishing Report April 2nd - April 7th
Lake Lanier Weekly Report
07 April 2023
Water Level: 0.20 feet ABOVE full pool.
Water Temp: Temperatures have rebounded into the low to mid 60s. This AM it was 61 on my Garmin. The temps will fall slightly Saturday and into Sunday with the cooler temps, wind and rain.
Water Clarity: As of this writing, there is no change in the water clarity from last week. The main lake and mouths of south end creeks are clear with increasing color as you head to the backs of the creeks and up the river. The amount of stain should increase with the amount of rain that is predicted to fall on Saturday.
I have been on the water for the past 7 days and the fishing has been pretty good this week. The fishing should only continue to improve as we move through the month and more and more spots flood the bank. There are a lot of things that are working right now allowing people to fish how they like. There are still plenty of LM up shallow spawning while some have already spawned and are starting to feed back up.
I fished from the mouth of Thompson Creek south to Bald Ridge this week, mostly focusing on the west side of the lake, but I did venture over to the east side as well. There are a few things that I picked up on this week that should roll over into next week as well.
The worm bite is the intersection of the size and numbers axis. If you drag a worm around right now, you will catch some fish and have a good chance at a big one. With that said, all banks are not created equal. The vast majority of my worm bites are coming off of clay flats or secondary rock points leading into spawning pockets. I did not catch many spots in the back 1/3rd of pockets this week. That being said, I expect to start finding more further back in the pockets any day.
The power finesse fishing of the DS is really starting to heat up. Its not several sacks of worms a day hot yet, but it’s hot enough to keep it in my hand a good bit. I am targeting individual targets on points leading back into pockets. I am casting the bait and only fishing it 5/6 feet before reeling in and casting again. An important fact to this is to use as light of a weight as you can get away with. I only use a 1/8oz weight when doing this technique. This allows the worm to fall in a more natural motion. As with the shaky head, the key depth has been less than 12 FoW but a few have come deeper.
The same thing holds true for the docks where I caught fish. The most productive were the first couple docks heading into a cove or isolated docks. The fish are moving to the shallow side of the dock, but some are still being caught on the deep side. For me, the key for finding productive water is to look for areas that may be overlooked by many anglers. The most obvious places are getting hammered hard right now. But there are stretches of bank, secondary points, and small clusters of docks that are being overlooked.
In addition to the worm bite, we caught fish on the Cast Fishing Co - USA 20g OG, 4.1 Prodigy, and a Mini-Me spinnerbait. All three of these baits were worked around shallow rock, clay and sand flats. There are some herring that are starting to pull up on some of these areas and there are bass that are feeding heavily on them. This is not something that is happening on every blow through and reef marker, but if you find the right one, it will be an absolute blast. If you find one of these hidden gems, and the fish stop biting the above baits, pick up the worm and drag it through the same areas to play clean up.
My most effective worms for the week were the Trixster custom baits Tamale in sweet candy and sweet baby candy and a 4in Zoom Sand colored dead ringer.
For the hard baits, we threw the River Gray 20g OG; chartreuse, cider, and herring colored 4.1 Prodigy; and a lavender shad Mini-Me. We threw the Prodigy on both the nose hooked nail weight rig as well as on a 1/8oz Buckeye Lures J-Will heads.
Of note, don’t let a slow start to the day or a lull in the action get to you. There were lulls each day this week, but every day we hit flurries throughout the day when the bite just blew up. Just when we started to cuss Lanier, Lanier would reward us.
For April I have the 12th(PM),18,20,21,24-28, and 30th available. As the days lengthen, when my schedule allows, during the week, the option for a ½ day (4-8pm or 5-9pm timeframe) trip as well. The next 4 weeks should be amazing fishing….so long as the weather cooperates.
Best of luck this week on the water, it is exciting out there. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Jeff
770-715-9933
Jeffnailfishing@gmail.com
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