Carters Lake Fishing Report – July 2008

Carters: Level: Full pool. Temp: 78-82 degrees. Clarity: With strong algae blooms, the lake is pea green.

Bass: Slow. “They’re in a full-blown summer pattern,” said Buddy Callahan of Bart’s Bait & Tackle. It’s been taking an 11- or 12-lb. five-fish limit to win local tournaments, and the most consistent bite is fishing a jig-head worm. Buddy said to fish a Spot Remover threaded with a finesse worm in green pumpkin or redbug. The fish are holding in 15 to 20 feet of water on secondary and main-lake points and humps. Early and late, there have been some fish caught shallow around trash in the backs of the pockets with either a fluke in white/glimmer blue or a swimbait. Also early and late, a few scattered fish will bite a medium-running crankbait fished along the banks. “It doesn’t matter what bank,” Buddy said. “At Carters, all the banks look the same.”

Linesides: Fair. Buddy said he has been catching stripers and a few big hybrids fishing downlines around main-lake humps. The best bite has been in the evening just before and after dark. The fish will move out of the main channel up around the humps to feed, and Buddy has been having luck downlining live gizzard or threadfin shad to about 35 feet. He said to just keep working around the humps until the fish decide to move up. The average striper has been between 12 and 14 pounds, but Buddy’s clients have caught a few in the 20-lb. range. The hybrids are weighing in the 6- to 8-lb. range. Buddy gave up two spots to look for them: the hump in the mouth of Woodring Branch between the campground and the three marker poles on the main lake, and the hump on the other side of those three marker poles where DNR has dropped a bunch of fish attractors. These holes are in sight of the dam. Another lineside bite worth mentioning is in the spillway below the re-regulation lake dam. Folks are catching good stripers with flukes rigged on a lead head and on paddle-tail swimbaits.