Lake Allatoona Fishing Report May 2013

Allatoona: Level: 1.5 feet above full pool. Temp: 67-71 degrees. Clarity: Clear to stained in the river.

Bass: Very good. Matt Driver reports, “Fishing is great. The spawn ran a little longer this year due to cooler weather patterns in April. Fish will be finishing the spawn in the first couple of weeks of May. Female bass will be recuperating, and a few days after the spawn they will begin to feed. May is the best topwater month by far on Lake Allatoona. It’s time to break out the walking baits and cover water. Long points near deeper water, pole markers and paralleling bluff walls work the best. I use a 6-foot, 6-inch St. Croix medium rod and a Lews Speed Spool reel with Sunline FX braid, and I fish with a Spro Dawg or Zara Super Spook topwater plug. The braided line is key. It allows you to make long casts, and it has no stretch, so you will make good contact when you set the hook on a long cast. It also takes less effort to work the bait. The bite usually slows after 9 a.m. or so, but if it’s cloudy, the bite may last all day. The swimbait bite is also good this month. Mix up your retrieves fast and slow to find out what’s best. I also throw a 5-inch Big Bite Jerk Shad and Trick Stick weightless in the same areas. I like to fish the Jerk Shad fast and right on top on 10-lb., Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon line and a 7:1 baitcaster. The shallow-brush bite will get better as the month goes on. Find brush in the 7- to 10-foot range. Work through the brush with a Kacys Custom Jig in brown and orange. Throw past the brush, and bring it in until you feel the brush, and slowly work it through. There will be no mistake when you get bit. The fish will thump it hard usually. Be safe; the traffic on the lake picks up dramatically this month.”

Linesides: Good. Guide Robert Eidson reports, “Linesides fishing is good, and the fish are biting from one end of the lake to the other. The hybrids have started their spawn runs up both the Etowah and Little River. Most of the fish that are being caught are already spawned out. The river bite should stay decent into the middle of May. The main lake is also fishing well. The fish that are returning out of the rivers are starting to school up from the Little River bridge up to the Delta and from the S-Turns to Kellogg Creek. There is also a decent south-end bite going on right now from Iron Hill to the bay out from of Third Army. The fish on the main lake are up in the water column and are very hard to mark on 2D sonar. If you have a Lowrance with side scan, you can locate these fish by running your side scan setting on 60 feet on both sides. This has been working great for me on my Lowrance 12 Touch Screen. If you don’t have side scan, the best way to find these fish is to put out a spread of planer boards and freelines and pull the banks and open water until you get bit. Planer boards and freelinng live shad on the main lake has been our best bite and are accounting for at least 95 pecent of our catch on both Allatoona and Carters. Small to medium gizzard shad have been the ticket. If throwing the net isn’t your cup of tea, Striper Soup Bait and Tackle in Acworth has plenty on hand. The river bite is a different story. Cut bait seems to be fishing best right now. But cut shad and chicken liver fished in any bend of the river or near any blowdown will catch you fish. There has also been a lot of big cats caught up the river the last few weeks. The lake record for blue cats was broken this week with a nice 36-pounder. Congrats to the angler for a great catch. Trolling has been decent but should get really good once the water temperature hits 70 degress. Overall, the bite on Allatoona is very good for almost the entire lake.”