Lake Oconee Fishing Report – April 2010

Oconee: Level: Full pool. Temp: 58-62 degrees. Clarity: Clearing in Richland Creek with a light stain on the Oconee River side.

Bass: Fair to good. Todd Lowe reports, “Oconee is finally acting like its old self. The bass are on the banks and eating pretty well. The best pattern right now is moving baits like the spinnerbait and Rat-L-Trap. Numbers of small fish can be caught on light Carolina rigs in shallow water. I figure the next full moon will put most of the fish on beds.” Al Bassett said there are a lot of bass in very shallow water. “Fish the shallow pockets in coves that are near deep water,” Al said. “I recommend an Ol-Nelle spinnerbait in white/chartreuse with one gold willowleaf blade and one silver Colorado blade. Be sure you use some form of a stinger hook for those short strikes. Another good bait to use would be a 1/4-oz. Rat-L-Trap in chrome/blue or the chrome/black. It is hard to beat using a Zoom lizard during the bedding season. Adding a few drops of the JJ’s Magic to your soft plastic will also help increase your catch ratio. Toward the middle of the month the shad spawn should be in full swing. Being on the water at daylight and looking for the hard seawalls where the shad are spawning will produce mixed bag of fish. Baits to use at this time would be Pop-Rs, buzzbaits or shallow-running crankbaits.”

Crappie: Good. “The size of the fish is going down, but the numbers of fish are beginning to rise,” Al said. “Troll in the backs of the creeks using Jiffy Jigs tipped with live minnows. The best areas to target are in the backs of Sugar Creek, Sandy Creek or Rocky Creek. These fish should be found in these areas until the end of the month.”

Linesides: Todd said the white bass are running. “The white bass are up at Dyer’s Pasture on the river. I have also caught some stripers up shallow while throwing a Trap. It should get better from now through the end of April,” Todd said. When the shad start spawning later this month, look for linesides to be mixed with largemouths feeding on shad on rip-rap rocks first thing in the mornings. Throw Rat-L-Traps, topwater baits or flukes, and try the small rip-rap patches along private homes in the Reynold’s area of the mid lake.