The doldrums of post spawn are slowly vaporizing and Lake Lanier is starting to heat up; temperature and action-wise, that is.
The past few days the water temps have held steady in the low to mid-seventies – that, of course, being the surface temperatures. Two feet deep there is still plenty of cooler water, just jump in and you’ll see what I mean.
The place to focus is the larger flats (ten acres or more) where average water depth is 10-20 feet. The herring and threadfin shad spawn here and the bass have an easy time finding a good meal.
The more productive flats are near the mouth of a creek. For example, Chestatee Bay is just north of Browns Bridge and is the mouth of Short Creek. As you head from the Chattahoochee River into Chestatee Bay toward Longhollow Park there are several islands on your left; start at the one has at least four reef poles slowly fancasting around the markers.
That has been a very productive flat for nearly two weeks. The topwater activity lasts until 9 a.m.; after that watch your sonar for schools of fish feeding on small pods of bait.
That said, because the bass don’t have to struggle to find food, they can be very temperamental, ignoring whatever wonderful presentation you make in the knowledge that an easy meal will be available shortly.
Most of all they do not like having a boat immediately overhead, so continue past the feeding activity you see on your fish finder and throw back at the place where you saw them. Best bait to throw is a drop-shotted Fluke on a 2-foot leader.
Enjoy the next several weeks as the bass should be getting more and more active before heading to their deep, summer time haunts.
