Shorelines are Alive

Water temperatures are getting into the mid 60’s and that means many fish species are moving into the shorelines, big and small. When the smaller fish move shallow that means the larger predators aren’t far behind as well.

This trip was to concentrate on locating crappies along the shorelines and using a 1/16 oz Clam Outdoors Pro Tackle Drop Tg jig with a 2-inch swimbait, casting this to the shores edge and working it back to the boat on a slow steady retrieve.

Was only able to find the one 13.5-inch crappie that was holding next to a dock. Determined to keep using this bait and finding more, the afternoon transpired into a bass catching bonanza.

Keeping the boat parallel to the shoreline, casting the swimbait at a slight angle to the waters edge, the retrieve allowed you to cover from the waters edge out into 5-6 feet of water. The bass were hitting on most of the shorelines and catching them from 7 inches up to 4 pounds.

Didn’t seem to matter if the shorelines had wind blowing on them or if the were protected from the winds. These fish are staging and getting ready to do their spawn as the bigger fish were still full of eggs.

The 2-inch swimbait was imitating smaller prey and keeping the plastic to a shiner color proved to be what they were keying to. Was a fun day on the water and you have to take advantage of this when they are there as it won’t take long, and they will move back off to the deeper water once again.