Lake Lanier Fishing Report March 11th - 17th
Lake Lanier Weekly Report
17 March 2023
Water Level: 0.20 feet BELOW full pool.
Water Temp: Water temperatures on Thursday were all over the map. From 51 first thing in the AM to 61 in the back of some stained pockets around 4pm. There is a good chance that morning water temps will be down to ~50 by Tuesday AM. After that, I expect temperature to start heading back up some. I was seeing 54 on the south end this afternoon. In the clear or shallow water, it does not take much time with highs in the 40s to drop the surface temps. Our saving grace may be the fact that the coldest days will be sunny, and the days are getting longer.
Water Clarity: As of the 17th, the clarity on the south end was 8+ in some areas and that decreases to only a few inches in the backs of some of the creeks and up the river arms. This will only be amplified with the rain we are receiving today.
I had a slower week this past week than last. The cold front definitely played into how my week played out. With that said, I want to talk a minute about the mental side of bass fishing and the role it plays in how successful an angler can be on any given day. This variable likely played as large or larger role in how my week panned out than the cold weather.
If there is one thing that I have learned time and time again during my life, it is the individual’s state of mind/ confidence plays a much larger role in their day to day success than most realize. There is no substitute for being confident in what you are doing. This applies not only to fishing, but in life in general. The more confidence you have in what you are doing and where you are doing it, the more fish you will catch. Early this week, I lost that mental edge, I knew the cold was going to have an impact on how the fish would bite and where they were likely located, I knew what I needed to be doing, but for reasons unknown, I did not have the right mindset to start off the week.
Because of this, I was doing the right thing, in the right areas, but the numbers of bites were not there. Why? The loss of my mental edge led to me fishing too fast. This lack of edge can come from a lack of confidence, stress, life distractions, the list goes on and on. I spoke to Jim Farmer about this Thursday afternoon, and he stated that he had noticed the same thing during tough conditions. Mental distractions equate to less bites and fish caught. When I realized this was going on, I was able to refocus and then start catching more fish. I did not change what I was doing, rather how I was doing it and how I felt about doing it. Confidence and focus: in tough conditions, there is no substitute for either.
So how and where did I catch fish? It was back to the spinning rods this week. I do not think I caught a single fish on a bait caster; maybe one on a jerk bait last Saturday. Finesse worms and the finesse swimbait produced all of my fish this week.
I have started rotating casting a DS in with my shaky head more over the past couple of weeks and I continued that this week. This technique produced my largest fish of the week, a stud of a LM that was on the deep side of a dock sitting up under a pontoon boat. As with many of the fish this week, I never felt her bite. The bite was much as they are in the dead of winter, just something different or heavy. When casting the DS with a finesse worm that is thicker than a Robo worm, I will move up to a 2/0 hook and I normally shorten my leader to about 8-10 inches. I will also drop down to a 1/8th weight as I am rarely fishing this rig deeper than 15/20 ft this time of year. Later in the spring, I will be fishing the DS dirt shallow and the lighter weight gets exponentially more bites than when I use a more traditional weight for a DS on Lanier.
When fishing docks this week, I focused on the front (deeper) 1/3rd. The fish were still in the shaded areas and were in no mood to really chase anything. This was not a numbers pattern this week, but it did produce my bigger bites.
Other than docks, I fished the DS and shaky head on secondary rock and clay points. The key to getting bit here was to move out a little deeper than last week and slow down, WAY DOWN. Count a couple rocks, soak the worm, check email, count rocks, soak worm, make phone call and so on. When I was able to force myself to slow down to this level, I got more bites. On the south end, finesse worms with some purple and brown in them out preformed the green pumpkin-based colors. This color combo was not as effective above 53 where the water is more stained.
The other technique that worked again was finding large schools of bait up on flats in the afternoon. The fish did not give themselves away this week as they were more lethargic, but if the bait was there in large quantities, the bass were there as well. The key to this bite is to get the swimbait on the bottom under the bait and retrieve it slowly. You want the swimbait to look like a shad or herring that has been stunned out of the school and is just hanging on to life scooting across the bottom. This was not an AM pattern this week as the shallow water was colder than the deeper water, but as the days warmed, bait would head to the warming waters of the shallows and the bass were not far behind.
LJ Harmon with Lanier Baits posted a perfect video of what it looks like on the sonar when you find these types of areas. It shows it all, depths, types of creeks/ pockets to look for, how much bait, etc. I could not have made a better video showing what I look for. His 3” swimmer is a very good option to catch these fish as well.
I still have some date available in March (20, 23, 26, 29, 30, 31) and the first week of April (full moon) just opened up on my calendar this week as well due to a change in spring break plans. Overall, things will only get better on the old pond as we work into April and May.
I want to thank everyone for the support, it is greatly appreciated.
Jeff
770-715-9933
Jeffnailfishing@gmail.com
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