Lake Eufaula Fishing Report August 2011

Eufaula: Level: Full pool. Temp: Mid to high 80s. Clarity: Slightly stained to stained.

Bass: Fair. Tim Malcolm reports, “As the water temperature has increased, the fish have continued to move slightly deeper in their summertime locations. Your best bet right now is to fish during the week if possible. There is a lot less pleasure-boat activity, and the Corps of Engineers has settled into a predictable generation schedule. This makes the fishing much better and more predictable on weekdays. Concentrate your efforts right now in the 15- to 20-foot range, and look for main-lake bottom irregularities that cause current breaks such as humps, points and indentions. Stumps or brush are real fish magnets on these type places, especially if shad are present. I can’t say enough about my Humminbird side-imaging unit and how it has cut down on the search time required to find these ‘sweet spots’ and let me concentrate on high-percentage areas. Once you find an area with the right ingredients, start out with a crankbait. I really like the Spro Little John DD when the fish are deep like they are now. You will be fishing for actively feeding fish with the crankbait, and once you get the first bite, the whole school will often go on a feeding frenzy resulting in hook-ups on cast after cast. With the current water clarity, I like to use either the citrus shad or spooky shad color. Once a school stops biting the crankbait, you can often pick up another fish or two by slowing down and fishing with a Carolina rig or Texas rig. On the C-rig, I like using a Big Bite 6-inch finesse worm in green pumpkin. On the Texas rig, try a Big Bite Kreit-tail worm in green pumpkin using a 3/8-oz. weight. With both of these rigs, fish them fairly rapidly until you get into some type of cover. Then, really work them slowly and thoroughly to coax those last few bites.”