July

[Fish24/7]

The last few trips have been pretty much the same thing. Top water baits before the sun gets up , Im on the water by 5:15.

noisy bright colored ones in dirty water, natural colors  and a more finesse approach in clearer water. Back of coves is where I've been finding some bass shallow in the cover. With falling water the bite back there has been getting slower,but still productive. A Bill Dance Spit n Image and a Bass Asassin 3" Shad Asassin have been the the most productive for me.

Around 9am I put away the bass gear and start looking for Gill beds. With the lake dropping the fish are moving out and   they arent where they were at for a long time.   The ones I'm finding now are in 2-4' on gravel near deeper water and near steeper banks and there's usually 12-15 beds . Not catching very many females now, just the big bulls  guarding . They are suckers for a floating Jighead with a honey worm on it. It's fairly clear water,4' visibility , where I found some yesterday and they would smash that floating jig on the surface while lightly twitching it.

Up shallow in foot of water next to the bank  there are hundreds of baby gills and baby yellow perch in the same school. I saw one bush had at least 50 gills in it and about a half dozen five inch yellow perch mixed in with them. 

I can see a lot of the lake ,acres of water where I was fishing and never saw one school of fish busting shad in the last 3 outings. What ever happened to the days where we'd catch schooling whites in the Summer? I just don't see that anymore in the Theodosia Arm.