Lake Oconee Fishing Reports – May 2021

Oconee: Level: Full pool. Temp: 68-73 degrees. Clarity: Stained to muddy up both rivers. Some stain past the 44 bridge that was clearing up after 10 days of no rain. Clear near the dam.

Bass: Tournament angler Karl Pingry reports, “The shad spawn is in full swing, but finding the bass with them is the challenge. The bass are not everywhere the shad are, so move quickly. Once you find the bass, slow down. Look for the shad spawn for the first hour of the morning on seawalls, rocks and rip-rap—any hard object the shad can bump and drop their eggs on. A double willowleaf white spinnerbait and a 3-inch paddletail swimbait are the lures Michael Lynch is throwing. A buzzbait, Pop-R or Trick Worm are other good choices. Look for the shad spawn to last through half of May or a week longer depending on the weather and water temps. After the shad spawn ends, Michael is heading straight to the docks. His go-to bait right now is a Sweet Beaver creature bait, but he’ll have a jig and a shaky head on the deck to let the bass tell him what they prefer that day. According to Michael, the frog bite is just about to start. The bass are blowing up on it but not hooking up well. Look for that bite to really pick up in the next week or so. Fish it the same places you would work other topwater baits, and it will shine around the aquatic grass. Michael also thinks there is still another wave of bass that will spawn soon. They will be a little deeper, so the south end is a better bet to see the beds. Plan to throw Carolina-rigged lizards or Trick Worms on secondary points in the pockets and little cuts in between those points. Concentrate in 3 to 6 feet of water to find the spawners, but fishing a little shallower and a little deeper will catch bass not on the beds. May will be a great month to find fish from the bank to 8 feet deep all month long. Lastly, look for the mayflies to also join the mix before May ends. For this, throw topwaters, green-pumpkin flukes with a chartreuse tail, frogs and small bluegill color crankbaits. Just watch the trees leaning over the water for bugs and fish activity. Good fishing!”

Linesides: Capt. Doug Nelms, of BigFishHeads Guide Service, reports, “In the month of May things really begin to change on Lake Oconee. Most of us guides feel like we have been fishing an entire year by now because we have had to change tactics and species for the past three months. When I think of May, I think of the word moderation.  Everything gets back to normal. The stripers have just left the river and the dam from their spawn, and they will start behaving normally starting in May and going over the next several months.  If someone tells you that the stripers are on deep-water humps, that is not a way of them giving you vague information, but it is the actual truth. You will find them in sight of the dam all the way up to the middle of the lake, and you will find them there most all the time. Rock Islands, the Pipe Line and the Hayfields at Sugar Creek is where they will be spending most of their time, and did I say they will be hungry? Starving may be the correct word! This month we will get up a little earlier each day to throw our cast net and fill the bait tanks full of shad, and on many days that bait tank will be empty before you can shake a stick. Downlined threadfin and gizzards are defiantly the ticket in May. I use a 12-lb. leader, a 2-oz. weight, and the main line is 12 to 14 pounds. I only fish six rods at once unlike the eight to 10 I fish when I am flatline trolling, because when you hit that school, every one of them will take a dive. Also, historically, the generation from Wallace Dam encourages them to bite even more, so we may start leaning a little more to afternoon trips instead of morning. This also brings into play the umbrella-rig bite for the afternoons. When generation starts and the fish are already on the hump, they cannot resist a Captain Mack’s u-rig pulled across their nose. I was thinking the other day if anyone makes a u-rig better than my buddy Captain Mack, and the answer is no! I have caught a million stripers in May using his u-rigs, okay, maybe a half million, trolled on 100-lb. braided line. I use the four-arm, 3-oz. head, with 3/4-oz. individual jigs. Forget using the trolling motor for this. Your gas motor is the only way to pull these heavy offerings. On my Ranger/Yamaha setup, I just click it into gear, and it gives me about 2.5 to 3 mph, which is the perfect speed for the fish. I also start off at 100 feet behind the boat, which puts those rigs at about 15 to 18 feet deep. If I find the fish deeper, I start letting out another 20 feet or so until I get a bite. It is one of the most-sure and productive ways to catch stripers in May. Sugar Creek Marina carries all the Captain Mack u-rig stuff, but be sure you put them on 100-lb. braid, or keep a rig retriever on your boat. Getting hung on something is kind of part of it, but with the braid, I just tie it on my boat cleat, and it comes right off.”

Crappie: Capt. Doug Nelms reports, “This is the month when the bigger crappie will show up on the timber. This month the Humminbird will be put to good use as we scan the tops of trees looking for that one special tree and what appears to be tiny Christmas ornaments hanging on the limbs. You will see crappie fishermen all over the lake with their heads bowed in what appears to be deep prayer and meditation. Is it a special high holiday… nope those are the LiveScopers, watching their fish finder screens and casting ahead of the moving school of crappie they have found. Yep, it’s treetops and brushpile months, and it is the type of fishing that I love so much. When there are three or four people on the boat, all I do is stand under the t-top and bait hooks and take off fish. Most of the time the trip passes so fast that I haven’t had the chance to catch one myself. I use 12-foot B’n’M Duck Commander rods with 10-lb. braided line. When they bite, you can feel it all the way down to your ankles, and normally I just use a No. 2 aberdeen gold hook with a minnow. The good news is that as summer approaches, this bite will only get better, but as for May, it seems like the bigger fish show up now. Sometimes you can catch fish on this lake with mediocre electronics, but for this bite, great electronics are a must! My Humminbird Solix 12 will show these fish so good that on certain days, I could sit and count how many fish are on each tree. It’s almost like cheating but with permission. Lake Oconee has 1,800 acres of submerged timber that you can see on a paper map titled ‘Fish Attractors.’ This is not the timber that was left above the waterline, but that which the engineers purposely left 12 to 14 feet below full pool. On a paper map, there are GPS numbers and that would be a good place to start, but I must warn you. Back in 1979, GPS wasn’t anywhere as good as it is today. Those trees are there, but about 80 to 100 yards off, but like I said, it is a good place to start. I found all the timber by making big circles using my side scan until they showed up. And in May, when you find the timber, you will find the fish.”