LAKE LANIER IS 4.67 FEET OVER FULL, THE CREEKS ARE STAINED AND THE MAIN LAKE IS CLEAR THE RIVERS AND UP LAKE COVES ARE VERY STAINED. 50S


There is debris lake wide.


This report brought to you by: Jimbo Mathley www.jimboonlanier.com 770 542 7764


The lake is finally on its way back down from record highs. The Corp of Engineers is now pulling water continuously and have been all week. Currently the lake stands at 4.67 feet over full pool and rising, and sits around 51 degrees. The backs of the live creeks in the lower lake are stained and the rivers are muddy and blown out in many areas. Please be careful of floating debris when navigating the lake. A worm has been our best bet for catching fishing this week. We have been presenting the plastics on a shaky head as well as a drop shot. We have been working this bait fairly shallow on rocky points at the mouths of pockets and creeks as well as deeper in ditches. Also, a shallow to medium diver like the Castaway 1.5 Shad crank has been good when the wind is blowing, but we have not seen much wind this week so the plastics have ruled. Work the crank baits on shallow rock points and clay banks, both in creeks and on the main lake when you do find some wind. Some days the wood in these areas is holding fish as well, so make sure to make some casts to the now many pieces of flooded cover.


For in depth details to include all baits, tactics, presentations, and locations, please make sure to check out my New Weekly Video Fishing available on my website: https://jimboonlanier.com/jimbos weekly video fishing / Here are my open dates for March: 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18(PM), 19(PM), 20, 21, 25, 26(AM), 27, 28, 29 (PM), 30. The pre spawn bite is on give me a call and let’s fish.


Striper fishing is good. There is a shallow water early morning bite using Herring, Threadfin or Trout, Gizzard shad on free lines and planner boards. Once the sun gets up, weight your lines with several split shots, deploy your down rods in addition to your free lines and move to deeper water. Make sure you are fishing over bait fish or there is bait close by. The bait has been moving to a depth of 25 to 40 feet over 40 to 80 foot bottom. If you are not marking any bait; move until you do! There are fish in every creek with high concentrations of bait. However, Flat Creek, Balus Creek and Four Mile Creek are hard to beat this time of year. One of the questions we get asked is how long are the leaders on your free lines and down rods? As a general rule, in the winter we use five foot of 12 or15 pound test Seaguar fluorocarbon line, depending on bait size and water clarity, as leaders on both our free lines and down rods. In fact the only difference in the setup of our down rods and free lines is the two ounce slip weight we use on our down rods. We always use a plastic red bead on the main line side of our swivel and tie our swivel and hooks to our leader using a Palomar knot. The red bead protects the swivel knot from the pounding it can get from a two ounce weight and serves as a stop for planner boards. We use Gamakatsu Octopus hooks from size #6 to 8/0 depending on the size of the bait. Typically we use a #1 hook for a small and medium Herring and a 1/0 for larger Herring. Over the years we have tried various line types, lengths, size and knots. The key is confidence in your terminal tackle. Use quality hooks, line, swivels and tie a knot you know will hold and you won’t have to talk about the big fish that got away because of equipment failure. The lake temperature is in the mid to high 40 s and the water is lightly stained on the main lake with heavy stain in the backs of the creeks. The lake is less than one foot below full pool.


This Lake Lanier Crappie report is from Dan Saknini, member of the Lanier Crappie Angler s Club. See our club s website, www. laniercrappieanglers.net


Water temperature is in the low fifties, with moderate to heavy stain from the middle of the lake and north, with the backs of creeks in all areas of the lake heavily stained from the relentless rain. As to be expected, fishing is good to excellent this time of the year, but if you didn’t t go fishing this past Monday, you missed out, as the rain has been pretty constant ever since. Hopefully we’ll get a break in the weather by the weekend. The trolling bite is good, using double rigged curly tails in a variety of colors. Try tipping some with minnows. This technique will result in bagging bigger fish. For dock shooters, the bite has been consistent all day long, targeting shallower docks at fifteen foot depths or less. As you start fishing a dock, you will notice you are catching the bigger fish. As they tend to get smaller, move on to another dock. We are beginning to see more fishermen on the lake as the weather warms up, so you are competing with a larger number of fishermen. As a result, it is very important to keep moving if you are not getting bites. The secret to putting a lot of fish in the boat is to simply cover a lot of water. Keep moving! The fish have started to move into shallow water, staging for the spawn. Four pound high visibility line is very important. Your jig color should vary depending on the water color. The more stain, the darker the jig. Stay away from heavier jig heads. 1/24 or 1/32 ounce jig heads remain our top choices. As we mentioned in the past, keep asking your friendly bait store to carry that weight jig head. They tend to be difficult to find. We are starting to check blowdowns in deeper water, but the water temperatures are not yet supporting activity there. Water temperatures need to be around 60 degrees for a few days in a row, which we’ve not yet reached. Watch for it though, it’s coming, and that will be the first sign of the spawn. Helpful tip: with all the rain and humidity, keep your tackle dry and at room temperature to avoid corrosion. If you keep your boat in your garage, keep your hatches open (especially if your boat is carpeted). I keep a terrycloth rag in every compartment, which helps absorb moisture. Stay safe on the water, wear a life jacket!


Ken Sturdivant, Lowrance Pro Staff, will be at the Bass Pro Shops in Lawrenceville, Georgia on March, 9, 17, 23 and 30, 2019 from 10 am until 5 pm. Dates and times are subject to change without notice.


We have all the details for our On the Water SONAR School on our web SCHOOLS page. We have the LOWRANCE LIVE and the NEW 3D Lowrance Technology on our boat. Bring any HDS machine only to Lake Lanier and learn it ALL in one day. Call Ken for details. See our Southern Fishing Schools page for the latest screen shots of the LOWRANCE 3D technology. See bass over a ladder in 10 feet of water 158 feet from my boat. www.lowrance.com


Ask for a free sonar set up sheet by sending me an email to ken@southernfishing.com. Please tell me what model machine you have.


Call Brian Leiva at www.bbgmarine.com 888 570 0916 for all your Lowrance and other technology.


We have these books for sale BASS FISHING ON WEST POINT LAKE BASS FISHING LAKE RUSSELL BASS FISHING WEST POINT LAKE and BASS FISHING LAKE HARTWELL. These books have lots of bass fishing and covers every week of the year. Each book $39.00. If you would like a sample of any book send us an e mail to ken@southernfishing.com.


We offer these waypoints for sale. You get the coordinates and you load them into your GPS unit for Lake Allatoona for $99.00 Lake Lanier for $99.00 Lake Oconee for $99.00 Lake Weiss for $99.00 Lake Hartwell for $99.00 WAYPOINTS ARE NOT REFUNDABLE





Ken Sturdivant, Lowrance Pro Staff, will be at the Bass Pro Shops in Lawrenceville, Georgia on March, 9, 17, 23 and 30, 2019 from 10 am until 5 pm. Dates and times are subject to change without notice.