Bet on Pickwick's ledges during June
Pickwick Lake is a great ledge lake. Although you primarily will be fishing for and catching largemouths there in June, when you get a strike, you don’t know what you’ll reel in, because all types of fish and baitfish will be running those ledges. All of the Tennessee River lakes are extremely fertile and home to an abundance of baitfish. During June, the ledges are the structure you can bet on to find and catch bass.
We’ll fish these Pickwick secondary ledges — not the river ledges — many different ways. In June, bass will be holding on the first ledges you come to between the river-channel ledge toward the bank. The weather is warming, but it’s not quite enough to move bass out to the deep-water river ledges just yet.
We’ll also fish secondary points and bars. This time of the year, I’ve found the best Pickwick bassing to be between Second Creek and the Natchez Trace. This area has many ledges and bars with underwater creeks cutting through them. Generally, you’ll see some grass starting to grow on some of these bars in June. My favorite two June places to fish at Pickwick are mussel-shell bars on these secondary ledges and the ends of those bars.
Crank ‘em up
I’ll start off with Mann’s 15+ and 20+ crankbaits in gray ghost or brown back/chartreuse colors. Read Full Story
Drawdown, increase in cover has turned 500-acre lake around
Maynor Creek, a 500-acre lake near Waynesboro, is a Pat Harrison Waterway District lake. One of the older lakes in that group, Maynor Creek had issues with its dam almost 10 years ago. The state pulled the water level down to repair the dam.
While the water was down, a tremendous amount of grass and brush grew up from the bottom of the lake. Once the lake level rose back to a normal level, that growth provided extra cover for spawning bass and young bass. Maynor Creek is in very good condition and is producing some 3- to 5-pound bass, as well as crappie and bluegills. You may catch a postspawn bass at Maynor Creek that weighs 7 pounds or more.
Early morning
From just at daylight until about an hour after, I’ll be fishing the lake’s causeway. A small bridge there is at a place where the lake necks down, and the bass have to pass through that area to reach the northern end of the lake. The causeway and the bridge create a funnel for baitfish and bass to move back and forth from one end of the lake to the other. At daylight, you’ll usually see plenty of bass action in that area, and perhaps even schooling bass.
I’ll be fishing this region with a white, ¼-ounce buzzbait and a shad-colored Zara Spook. To fish the buzzbait, I’ll use a 7-foot-2, medium-heavy Shimano Expride rod and a Curado 200 XG reel with 23-pound test White Peacock fluorocarbon. I’ll use a 6-foot-10 medium-heavy Expride rod with the same reel with 30-pound bass braid and a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader to fish the Spook. I’ll cast both lures from the points of the causeway bridge down the road embankment to about 50 yards on either side of the bridge and on both ends. Read Full Story
Fish for Bogue Homa post-spawn bass in April
April is a post-spawn bass month at Bogue Homa. The females will be coming off the bed, and they’ll want to feed up to help recover from the spawn. But they will still will be holding fairly close to the spawning area in shallow water.
Ever since the restructuring of Bogue Homa 10 years ago, the lake has held numbers of big, healthy bass. To successfully fish at Bogue Homa, remember that weekend anglers know the big-bass potential of this lake. So your best opportunity to catch bass there is to fish during the week.
Early morning
• Two topwater baits. In April, I like to start off fishing topwater baits early in the morning around the big, underwater, cypress stumps that line the ditches running through the flats on Bogue Homa. My favorites in April are the Zara Spook and the Whopper Plopper. The stumps will be about 1 to 1½ feet under the surface and can be hard to see at first light. I have a number of them marked on my Garmin GPS, but the electronics tool I’ll primarily be using is my Garmin Panoptix. Read Full Story
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Jake Lands 7.7 Largemouth Fishing with Paul
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Testimonial
Paul, Patrick and myself want to thank you for the two day in depth fishing lessons. These are two days we will never forget. From the time we arrived at your cabin for breakfast you made us feel welcome and at home. We hit the water and begin catching fish. You would sit down for a while, we couldn't catch any fish, you would get a rod and bam you showed us again one behind another. My biggest fish was 7 lbs 9 oz. You shared a lot with us and we will be forever greatful for learning from a legend. I would do it again and would not change a thing.
Thanks again Paul for a wonderful time.
Wayne Gant and Patrick Currie
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Testimonial
Paul, Wanted to drop you a line and again thank you for the great time Lance and I had. The time spent with you on the electronics was amazing,but the real deal was when we put that knowledge and applied it out on the water on Friday.We guessed our best 5 would of been in the 42 lb range, with both of us catching our personal best fish of our lifes.We had 2 over 10 and 1 around 9 from your lake. We are getting ready to start into the Everstart series this year and your class will definitely help us out.
Thanks again, Frank
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