Lake Lanier Fishing Report November 2016

Lanier: Level: 8 feet low. Temp: Mid 70s. Clarity: The water is lightly stained in the creeks and clear on the main lake.

Bass: Tournament angler and guide Ryan Coleman reports, “Lanier bass fishing is excellent! The lake is a little more than 8 feet below full pool and steadily dropping about 1 inch per day. That is bad for the homeowners but excellent for us fishermen. When the lake is down this time of year, it really helps concentrate the fish for us and eliminates some of Lanier’s 40,000 acres to hunt for them. Let’s just hope it stays that way through the winter. We had a late cool down this year and were on summer patterns until late October, but that is changing. The fish are starting to stack up on points on days when we have wind, and even a few are starting to go deep for us. For the fish up on windy points, attack those with a 1-oz. Mini-Me spinnerbait with double white or nickel blades. I would suggest a shad pattern like a blue billet or lavender shad, and make sure you never throw a Mini-Me, or any other spinnerbait on Lake Lanier, without a trailer hook. You are just giving up bites if you don’t have one on the back of the bait. Make long casts, and keep the bait moving across the points, and keep moving point to point. You can also work a jerkbait or swimbait on these points if the spinnerbait does not work. The wind really helps concentrate the fish on the points, so do not run from it. For the deep fish, look for timber breaks or ditches in 40 to 50 feet of water. The lake being down this year will position the fish a little different in the timber, so keep trying new places. Some of the timber will be very thick, so make shorter casts to give you a better angle at the structure. I would suggest a 3/8-oz. casting jig in brown and green colors, as well as a 3/16-oz. SpotSticker jig head tipped with a Zoom Swamp Crawler or Trick Worm. This rig should be on your deck every single day from now until April of next spring. You will use it daily. As the water temperatures drop, look for the fish to really start to stack up deep. With the low water conditions, we should have a fantastic time fishing deep this winter. It’s our best time of year for numbers and size of spotted bass. Good luck out there to everyone.”

Linesides: Big Fish On Guide Service reports, “Striper fishing has been a challenge due to the unusually warm temperatures, the high pressure systems and bright sun with bluebird skies. However, we are looking for significant changes in November with cooling temperatures. Look for a good topwater bite in the early morning and late afternoon. The seagulls will also begin arriving in mid to late November. The gulls are great fish-finding tools. The key is to keep your eyes on the water to identify surface activity and feeding birds. The typical topwater baits will work for surface feeding stripers. Red Fins, Chug Bugs, Spooks and 1/2-oz. Captain Mack’s bucktail jigs are all good choices. It is also time to focus on the creeks from the creek mouths to halfway back in the creeks with bait. Pull blueback herring and trout on planer boards and flatlines at 0.5 to 0.8 mph. Set your lines at 20 to 50 feet behind your planer boards and your freelines at 70 to 100 feet behind the boat. Also keep a couple of downrods deployed for those deeper fish. In addition to the bait lines, someone should be on the front deck casting a Captain Mack’s bucktail jig with a fluke trailer. Every creek is holding fish right now. Focus on the creeks with the largest concentration of baitfish. Be on the lookout for information on the Lanier Striped Bass Coalition WRD fundraising raffle.”