Lake Oconee Fishing Report – June 2025

Oconee: Level: Full at 435. Temp: High 70s to low 80s. Clarity: Clear.

Bass: Guide Nick Knapp, with Elite Guide Service, reports, “During the month of June, it is transition month. I look for the fish to move from the banks on the periodic shad spawn that has been going on. Docks this month are going to be great. I like to flip docks with a D Bomb with a 1/2-oz. weight pegged. As the month continues on, I like to get off the points with a Carolina-rigged green-pumpkin Trick Worm and work it slow on tapering points in Richland Creek. As the water warms, it’s time to slow down a little bit.”

Stripers: Capt. Doug Nelms, with BigFishHeads Guide Service, reports, “June will put us in the middle of the summertime striper and crappie bites, and us guides are pretty excited about it. Yep, I said striper! Stripers used to not be a thing on Oconee in the summertime, but since the oxygen lines were introduced three years ago, it has made a huge difference. If you have never seen it, you should ride down one morning and check it out. When they are all on, you’ll see five lines running about a mile from the dam almost to the Rock Islands. When you sit on one of the lines, your electronics will go all fuzzy because of the massive amount of oxygen that is coming up from the lake bed. If you get your transducer just off the bubbles (5 to 10 feet), you will probably see some really big lines on your graph. Trolling, casting artificials and dropping down live bait is the preferred methods to wrangle these fish, and all these methods work great. The oxygen lines are in the deepest part of the lake bed, so you will be fishing in 80 to 90 feet of water, but the fish will be from 15 feet down to 40 feet. I find when I put my Humminbird Solix on chirp, it’s more suitable for seeing the fish. If you are doing catch and release, June is probably the last month in the summer to effectively do so. Next month, as the water heats up, you will find that once you put a 10-pounder or bigger fish in the boat, they will not recover when you send them back, so keep that in mind.” 

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Crappie: Capt. Doug Nelms, with BigFishHeads Guide Service, reports, “As far as the crappie go, I don’t know if I have ever seen so many 9-inch fish in my life on Oconee. The treetops and brushpiles are just loaded with them. If someone asks where are they, my answer might sound like an smarty pants fishing guide, but they are everywhere! From Richland Creek all the way over to the 44 bridge, it’s hard to find a brushpile that doesn’t have a fish on it. I’ve just installed the Humminbird Mega Live 2, and it’s crazy how easy it makes plucking fish off the trees. If you have any forward-facing sonar, you will immediately know what I am talking about. Just about any structure in the 15- to 30-foot range is covered with fish! There are several ways to catch them in structure. You can troll over them with your spider rigs, you can anchor and drop minnows, which is something my customers enjoy doing, or you can shoot jigs at them using forward-facing sonar. What is amazing and wonderful about our summertime crappie bite is that the hotter the weather gets, the hotter the bite will be. June is a great month for all of us on Oconee. Start early in the morning and be off by 11 a.m., and you will miss the lake traffic and catch a lot of fish.”