Pickwick Lake Elevation 414
WaterTemp. 77

BASS
Overallbass fishing has been excellent but to really do good I have had to focus onthe morning hours. The first few hours of daylight can be reallyproductive in the right areas. Several guide trips have shownthat between6am and 9am we can catch better keeper fish than the rest ofthe day combined. If you have a slow start during those morning hoursodds are you are going to have a tough day fishing. I like to throwa surface bait right now only if I see bass busting the surface.By 6:30am Ilike to throw a Sexy Shad, Strike King Series 6 CrankBait around main lake tapering points. The larger size crank baitusually attracts bigger fish and do not count on it eliminating small fishbecause the smallest bass will try to eat it as well. One triplast week produced two smallmouth bass over five pounds the first hour offishing on the Strike King Series 6 on two different main lakepoints. Make sure you use a medium action rod with a smoothreel to get the most action out of these crank baits. I willfish with this same crank bait for the rest of the day butthe action usually slows down after 9am. Carolina rig some of these points for a few extra fish, if they are therethey may hit the slower bait.

WhiteBass
Whitebass have been running strong for a while now with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. You can catch white bass on a number of baits, in-line spinnerbaitsare popular and white grubs are very common and easy to use. On most of myguide trips I like using the smaller crankbaits because they are easy for anovice fisherman and I seem to catch the bigger sized white bass. Themost productive crankbait over the last few weeks has been the Series 3 StrikeKing crankbait in the Sexy Shad color because of its similarities to thebaitfish as far as size and color.

Stripers
Stripersare biting really well when the Dam is generating. Yellow tail minnows arerunning strong right now and accounting for a large number of fish. Fish theseyellow tail minnows close to the bottom and drift down stream. If you fishduring the morning hours or late afternoon you can catch a lot of fish on aKing Shad by Strike King, this bait runs below the surface and is big andstrong enough to hold up to big stripers. It is best to fish the King Shad inthe new Sexy Shad color on 12 pound test line and throw it where there is a lotof current, because it is jointed its action attracts fish when you simply reelit back slowly with tight line. Just make a long cast and keep your line tight.


Catfish
Itook a group out catfishing Monday to verify the catfish were still active andthey definantly are. We caught all of our fish in 20' ofwater. We were able to catch all we wanted on live night crawlers but thebigger fish were caught on turkey liver and cut bait.