I remember meeting a man who had a chronic fear of flying yet his job required him to travel extensively, and airplanes were a major component of that travel.
Despite hundreds of flights (all of which landed safely) this poor guy could not chase away the butterflies that filled his stomach whenever he would enter the gatehouse area of whatever airport he was transiting.
He laughed and said “white-knuckle-flyer” was his email account user name. Steve (his real name) described flying to me as: “hours and hours of boredom sandwiched between minutes of sheer terror.”
That phrase has always stuck with me and I plagiarize his words whenever I go fishing from mid-May until the end of June. Fishing during those six weeks is literally “hours and hours of boredom sandwiched between minutes of sheer terror.”
I spend the bulk of my time during this period with an 8-foot heavy action/soft tip casting rod lying at my feet equipped with a high speed reel, 15-pound test line and a chrome Zara Super Spook.
The Spook dangles over the side of my boat as the rod is available in a heartbeat should “the minutes of sheer terror” begin nearby. You know what I mean: a wolf pack of spotted bass and stripers cause the water to erupt as herring become airborne fleeing for their lives.
It only lasts for a few seconds so a successful fisherman needs to be ready to instantly stop what he is doing and grab that rod for a rapid fire response to the ephemeral feeding frenzy. One cast is probably all you will get but it can result in some magnum spotted bass for your livewell.
(Having pre-consumed a large Red Bull energy drink helps with the reaction speed.)
By the time you have reeled in that frantic cast the action is over and it’s back to ”hours and hours of boredom” as my acquaintance would say.
I like using that downtime to slowly move about the area, watching my fish finder and dropping a plastic worm to any fish I might see beneath my boat. This pattern is not nearly as productive as a casual observer might expect, but that frustration helps you remain attentive to the surface waters nearby.
I have learned that there is a reason for this pattern of behavior by the bait fish and the predators as well. A long-retired fisheries biologist taught me years ago that until the thermocline establishes itself in a clearly defined fashion (usually around the 4th of July) the schools of fish are relatively shallow and nomadic.
The current fisheries biologist on Lake Lanier, Jeff Durniak, is kind enough to send me results of water samplings done on Lake Lanier and other area reservoirs. The samplings are gathered at various locations and measure water temperature and oxygen saturation at specific depths in the lake.
The image I have attached to this blog is a chart prepared by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division (located on Ga. Highway 53 in Gainesville across the road from Gainesville Marina).
This chart is from the DNR’s June 1st sampling done in the area of Browns Bridge. Water samples were collected from the surface down to nearly 40-feet.
Notice the high levels of oxygen at roughly 15-feet (blue line); fish like that, it’s comfortable for them. Then notice where the water temperature steps down (red line) from roughly 10 feet to 18 feet. Fish like that, especially the fragile herring population.
Most of the bait fish will be in those depth ranges until the water begins to warm and forces the oxygen concentrations lower. At that time a more-pronounced level where the water temperature drops quickly will appear.
The game fish follow the bait fish which means, for now, they are all suspended in 12-18 feet of water and moving about randomly.
“Hours and hours of boredom sandwiched between minutes of sheer terror” is an appropriate description to how fishing should be for the next several weeks.
