West Point Fishing Report – March 2010

West Point: Level: 4.8 feet below full pool. Temp: Low 50s. Clarity: Stained to muddy.

Bass: Fair. Paul Parsons reports, “Look for largemouth and spotted bass to be suspending in the trees along the river and major creek channels. Bass are also holding in the brushpiles on the old roadbeds.”

Linesides: Good on the main lake on live shad, Paul said. Try the railroad hump, the flats Indian and the humps in the mouth of Maple. “We are about four weeks away from the start of the striper, hybrid, white bass spawning run up the Chattahoochee River,” Paul said. Bobby Wilson reported a pretty good upriver bite for stripers in the deep holes with shad, but he said you have to be very careful running up river. The sandbars have shifted. Also, Bobby said you can catch some hybrids and stripers trolling Shad Raps, Bandits and Rat-L-Traps in Yellow Jacket, Maple and Wehadkee creeks.

Crappie: Great. Bobby said the crappie are tearing it up right now on the top end of the lake. They are starting to move up a little, and they are full of eggs. The fish are scattered from 6 or 7 feet all the way out to 18 to 20 feet. It’s just a matter of time and water temperature before they move up onto the banks in full-spawning mode. He’s been catching 50 to 60 fish on a half-day trip, and some anglers are reporting up to 100 fish on full-day outings. Bobby said a lot of the fish he’s catching are small, but there are some good slabs mixed in. Trolling jigs is the best way to catch them, and Bobby said they’ll bite just about any jig with a chartreuse tail. John Deere green, black/chartreuse, chartreuse and bubble-gum chartreuse are good colors right now.

Catfish: Good. Paul reports, “Blue and channel catfish are biting good all over the lake. The best bait is cut shad. Fishing for flathead catfish has slowed down due to the cold. The flathead fishing will start picking up when the water starts to warm in the spring, usually about the time the striper and hybrid run up the Chattahoochee River gets going good.