Lake Sinclair Fishing Report July 2012

Sinclair: Level: 1.8 feet below full pool. Temp: 82 to 86 degrees. Clarity: Light stain.

Bass: Good. Guide Walker Smith reports, “Bass fishing has been good, as the fish are still steadily moving offshore. Spend a lot of time on your graphs and be patient. Graph the ends of points, river ledges and humps. When you see fish, you can usually catch them with a Carolina rig and a deep crankbait. This bite has been fun because the fish are in fairly large groups, and wherever you get a deep bite, you should expect several more. To intercept these fish as they move offshore, flip docks near points with your favorite soft plastic. If you’re looking for that big bite, topwater is hard to beat. If the water is up, hit some of your favorite shallow structure and hold on. Cover water quickly while looking for topwater fish; they will let you know quickly if they are going to eat. If deep fishing isn’t your thing, now is the time to be targeting mayflies. In the past few weeks, the hatches have been getting thicker and more numerous by the day. Run up the Little River or the Oconee River arms and look for the black trees. When you find the mayflies, topwater, jigs, crankbaits and weightless plastics are hard to beat. This kind of fishing is a blast, especially great for children and newcomers to bass fishing. If the lake gets a light overnight rain, call in sick to work the next day and go have a blast fishing mayfly hatches.” Aaron Batson reports, “The dock bite has been decent and picking up. Look for deeper docks near channels and flip two baits. A Texas-rigged, Wackem Goliath, 10.5-inch worm in junebug or redbug or a Net Boy Baits 1/2-oz. flippin’ jig with a Wackem Big Tater bug as a trailer in black/blue color. You have to work through several docks, but bigger profile baits put kicker fish in the boat. For numbers, drag a Carolina-rigged Wackem Trick Stick or Big Sissy on main-lake points and humps in 15 to 25 feet of water. Good colors are watermelon candy or green pumpkin candy.”