Lake Weiss Fishing Report June 2013

Weiss: Level: 0.2 feet below full pool. Temp: Low 70s. Clarity: Lightly stained.

Bass: Look for bass on a postspawn pattern. Guide Mark Collins reports, “Most bass have spawned and started moving out to the grassbeds, docks and seawalls where there’s been a topwater bite early. Once the sun gets up, jigs, worms and shallow-running crankbaits and spinnerbaits are catching a lot of fish.”

Crappie: Fair. “Most crappie have moved to deep brush and cover on the old river channel ledges in water 8 to 14 feet deep,” said Mark. “Spider-rigging with live minnows is the way to catch these postspawn crappie.”

Stripe: Poor. “They were still up the rivers on their spawning run,” Mark said. “Look for them to start moving back to the lake over the next few weeks.”

Catfish: Excellent. Lonnie Fountain, a pro catfish tournament angler, said in June the big catfish are on flats in about 12 to 15 feet of water adjacent to deep water. He’s catching catfish despite the huge amounts of rainfall. Lonnie prefers fishing with gizzard shad or threadfin shad as bait, and with a cast net he can grab plenty of bait in short order. He’ll use both live bait and cut bait. “I use braided 100-lb. test line with 80-lb. monofilament leader,” he said. “I use a 7/0 Diiachi circle hook when fishing in the tournaments because they have such a good bite-to-hookup ratio. The catfish also hook themselves on this hook. He uses an adjustable large foam cork with the 2-oz. weight affixed to the line above the cork. The float keeps his bait just off the bottom. For a full feature on the catfishing Weiss, see the article on page 88.