Lake Oconee Fishing Reports – July 2022

Oconee: Level: Full at 435. Temp: 86-91 degrees. Clarity: About as clear as it gets for Oconee with a little color in the rivers.

Bass: Tournament angler Karl Pingry reports, “Michael Lynch has been on the water a lot in June and reports that you can catch numbers and be off the lake by 10, but the better fish are hard to find. Michael continued to say that all the bites are reactionary. If he’s throwing topwater, the bass are hitting the bait before he can engage his reel. He recommends a Pop-R, buzzbait or frog (gliding or popping). As the sun gets up, he’s targeting his favorite docks with a shaky head or a jig in green pumpkin or bluegill colors. Michael said the fish are moving off with the bait as it falls. He’s just watching his line and almost never feels the bite. There hasn’t been significant mayfly hatches when he’s been on the water, but the bluegill have started bedding again and Michael is finding the areas and docks that have those bedding fish to be the locations holding the bass. Expect July to get tougher and begin the dog days of summer. Getting on the water at first light and staying until 10 will be Michael’s plan along with trying to time the afternoon bite with Georgia Power (GP) pulling water. Stay shallow—less than 10 feet early in the morning whether you’re fishing topwater or a moving bait such as a crankbait. Docks that have a little depth to them or have brush on them will be the consistent places to try. Keep an eye out for the mayflies, and frogs, shaky heads and bluegill-colored swim jigs will work. Lastly, look for the cratered bottoms with bluegill on them trying to bed. Use the same baits you would for the mayflies. Stay hydrated!”

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Crappie: Capt. Doug Nelms with BigFishHeads Guide Service reports, “The crappie are in full swing on the standing timber and brushpiles on Lake Oconee. The hotter the temps get the hotter the bite will be. We are going through more than 100 minnows on every trip and usually before lunch. Good electronics are a must for this type of fishing, and you are looking for trees filled with crappie from 12 to 18 feet under the surface. While a lot of guys fish brushpiles, I tend to lean toward deeper water where there is standing timber. We fished a spot today that was 64 feet deep, and I was afraid my marker would run out of string before the weight made it to the bottom. The fish were clearly hanging out about 20 feet deep in the top of one of the old trees that GP left when they impounded the lake and they were big. The reason I target these deeper places is I believe they hold bigger fish, while a brushpile in 20 feet of water may have so many fish its hard to count them, and those normally are the smaller ones. When you can find 10 or 12 fish on those deep trees, this is where you will be rewarded with the big girls. My setup is the same throughout the season. I use an 11-foot ACC Crappie STIX, 10-lb. braid, 1/2-oz. weight and 8-lb. fluorocarbon, and a No. 2 aberdeen hook goes through the bottom and top lip of a crappie minnow. My customers know to keep the rod very still when dropping it into the timber because the minnow will do all the work for you. When I pull up to a tree and don’t get a bite in a couple minutes, I know that I must be off of it just enough that they’re not seeing it, or they might have been spooked and gone to an adjacent tree. I will continue fishing this pattern right up until deer season, or until cooler weather moves them off the wood.”

Stripers: Capt. Doug Nelms with BigFishHeads Guide Service reports, “Historically, July starts the awesome pumpback bite that occurs at the dam. Last year it was terrible! It just never took off. I heard about every good reason why it didn’t, but we all did agree it just didn’t happen. But, we’ve got high hopes this year, and July at the dam can be about as exciting as any striper fishing you’ll ever want to do. Topwater action, pulling A-rigs, dropping spoons, when they are on down there, you really can’t go wrong. But what makes all this happen is Georgia Power pumping the lake back full after a previous afternoon of strong generation. Normally, if enough water is taken out of the lake from the day before, it takes them much longer to fill it back up, and the pumpback can go to 8, sometimes 9 a.m. Those are the days we just love being down there. This year there is a brand-new event happening that we have never dealt with before. Bubbles! That’s right, bubbles! The oxygen system installed by GP is now operational, and the plan is to bring the oxygen up in Oconee and Sinclair so the fish will have the right amount of oxygen to survive. Someone shared with me that on a flat, calm morning you might actually see the bubbles coming up to the top of the lake, just like in an aquarium. I haven’t seen them yet, but I have seen some really nice screen shots from my Humminbird guys that clearly show the bubbles coming out of the pipes on the bottom of the lake. There is a lot of speculation on the affect this will have on the fishing on Oconee. Next month I plan on sharing some pictures and making more observations about our new oxygen system, so be sure to look back next month.”