A forecast for fishing!
Predicting what is going to happen in the
future with fishing almost sounds like someone just making a wild guess.
It really would be a guess if I told you I knew exactly what the fish are
going to do and of course, as soon as I did they would do something
different. But with about forty years of experience on Grand Lake I can at
least give you an educated guess as to what the fish should be doing in
the summer of 2006.
They will be biting!
Grand has a history of good fishing, even
in the hot months of summer. On some lakes the bite really slows down in
the summer months, but this is not usually true with Grand.
I used to tell people who fish bass
tournaments the best fishing and the best weights came in the spring or
the fall. This hasn't been the case in the last few years. The late June,
July and August tournaments have come in with the best weights and have
had large numbers of limits. The fish come off long points, brush piles
and boat docks. The deep fish are usually caught on deep cranks, Carolina
rigs, and a new wrinkle to Grand, the heavy football jigs.
I can stretch the truth a little like when
I tell people on guide trips that Grand has more white bass than any lake
in the world. I really don't think this is too far from wrong. So many
people have a mistaken impression. They think the fishing for whites is
the best in the spring when they spawn. Truth is, the fishing on grand is
even better in the summer.
We catch white bass with great success
almost every day we fish for them by finding them surfacing or fishing 15
to 20 foot drop-offs and humps. I'm down to two baits we currently use to
catch them, whether fishing twenty-five feet deep or find them
surfacing.
I use a two-inch grub called a "Swimming
Minnow" made by Lucky Strike, or a ¾ ounce jigging spoon. The grub will
catch both the topwater fish and the deep fish. There is no faster way to
catch a large number of whites than to get on top on them with a spoon.
The crappie fishing is usually good until
about the 15th of June, then it slows down a lot after that but picks up
again in September.
I personally don't do much catfishing, but
summer is a good time to drift the flats. A lot of nice blues are caught
this way. The jug fishermen fill their boats this time of year as well. It
isn't unusual to catch nice blues weighing in at over twenty pounds. The
really big ones will come later in the fall.
If you have trouble catching fish this
summer give Grand a try.
See also:
"When
to Fish for What"
