Scout'nStripers
Senior Member
This week I was able to get out 4 days, either morning runs or evening runs, including an evening run with Lisa. At the start of the week surface temps were barely 70 degrees and when I took out yesterday at noon they were just clipping 75. I had a really good week for bigger fish but I avoided fishing for numbers and a lot of small fish. If you want numbers and the occasional bigger fish, fish shallow right now. It really doesn't matter what you use, the shallow fish will bite just about anything that moves around the shallows and looks edible. The shakey head with smaller 3-4 inch worms is still your best bet for numbers followed by weightless flukes, grubs, Carolina rigged lizard, under-spin and drop shot. The surface action is getting there but seems like it's less than what it should be right now. This week I threw my surface popper and caught a few but nothing real big. I did see a few stripers swirl on it but no striper takers on the popper. The chug Bug has netted a few smaller stripers and bass this past week. One morning last week I fished a favorite point in the creek and foul hooked a smaller bass on the popper. As I got him close to the boat I noticed he was being stalked by a 20+lb striper. As he got closer there were more and more big stripers coming up to look at the foul hooked bass. No takers, just lookers. Any one of those big stripers could have ate the bass but they knew something was up. The main attraction for me this week was fishing long points and humps out on the main lake for bigger fish. I think there are a few bigger female fish that are post spawn and moving out. I caught some nice fish this week out on the main lake around humps, islands and long points, some just off the river channel. I'm still throwing the medium diving crankbait in the shad pattern and having success on deeper suspended fish as well as some shallow fish. It's probably not the best technique for numbers right now but there are some bigger fish moving out to the main lake shallows and I like the feel of the bigger bass crushing that little crankbait. I would imagine a jerkbait will also work for these shallow fish and fish around the humps so I'd definitely give that a try. Hopefully the topwater bite will get a little better for me next week. Here's a short video of my biggest this week and a few pics from the week.