As I pushed forward the throttle leaving the Duckett Mill boat ramp – sun still low on the horizon – I thought to myself, “It’s chilly this morning. I should have brought a jacket.”
Immediately on the heels of those words a second thought raced through my mind: autumn fishing! The dog days of summer are over! Yeah!
Never mind the fact that the calendar said August 12; never mind that the water temperature gauge said 84.6 degrees; never mind that the weather forecaster predicted 90-degrees for today’s high.
This tired-of-sweltering, tired-of-lathering-in-sun-block, tired-of-constantly-hydrating fisherman was hungry for cooler weather and the end of Lake Lanier’s most challenging time to fish. Summer 2015 has been as difficult on anglers as any summer I have experienced since moving here in 1981.
But then the “brakes” of maturity set in.
After half-a-century of being serious about fishing, I smiled, laughed softly and thought back on all the times I was way, way ahead of the fish. I recalled those occasional 70-degree days we get about every other year at the end of February, and how I would be scouring the back of pockets looking for bass on the bed.
I chuckled at how many times the bass weren’t ready to do what I expected them to be doing. “Back off, old timer,” I told myself. “Those fish will change what they are doing when THEY are ready to change what they are doing, and not a day sooner.”
Sure enough, August 10thturned out to be just like August 9th; the fish were still doing their summer-thing.
I managed to catch a few decent spots. All were between 32 and 36 feet deep and feeding on the bottom.
The scattered surface activity I witnessed, again, appeared to be single fish in pursuit of a single baitfish. Admittedly, those fish were exceptionally stout, as were the baitfish they were chasing, but as anyone who’s spent a summer day on a southern reservoir knows the futility involved in chasing those fish is not worth the effort. Your chances of chasing down one of them is better if you stay put and hope one explodes nearby and you can get a quick cast into its target range.
Best colors to use - the ones that work best for me and my handful of fishing comrades - continue to be green pumpkin for dragging on the bottom, and something in red for a drop shot. Morning Dawn and Tomato are two good colors for the drop shot rig.
The day started off with thoughts of fall fishing but ended with summertime reality around noon.
Wiping the sweat from my face I climbed into my truck for the drive home. The radio came to life just in time to hear Access-WDUN meteorologist Steve LaVoie ruin my delusion of autumn’s return.
But…ever the optimist…I told myself, autumn is now one day closer. Yeah!
