Fish where they are, when they are
There are two kinds of fishermen in July: the ones who understand hot-weather fishing and the ones who spend six hours casting into bathwater, catch nothing and announce that the fish aren’t biting.
The fish are biting. They’re just not biting where you insist on casting.
Let’s begin at Keystone because it is home water, and there is no sense hauling a boat across two counties to a lake by a town you cannot pronounce until you have first failed completely in your own backyard.
As of Monday afternoon, Keystone was nine feet above normal, with the pool sitting at 732 feet. That is still plenty of extra water, but it is a considerable improvement from the roughly 17 feet above normal the lake carried only six days earlier.
In other words, Keystone is dropping fast.
The fish are moving with it. They reposition when water falls. So do hazards. The rock you ran above safely last week is going to be sitting just beneath the surface waiting to collect your propeller and teach you about watching your electronics.
The water is stained and running around 79 degrees, which sounds unpleasant if you are a fisherman, but perfectly acceptable if you are a bass with some shade to hide in.
Largemouth are biting on in-line spinnerbaits, jigs and soft plastics around brush, timber and riprap.
Notice the repeated use of the word “around.”
Around brush. Around rocks. Around timber. Around shade.
Shade. Bass are not going to be suspended in the middle of a barren cove hoping some determined fellow will make his 73rd identical cast across open water.
They are sitting where they have cover, shade and an easy ambush on prey.
Fish the structure. Early in the morning, throw spinnerbaits or other moving lures along riprap, flooded brush and shaded banks. Once the sun gets high enough to begin cooking the back of your neck, slow down and put a jig or plastic bait tight against cover.
Not in the general ZIP code of the cover. Tight to it.
Yes, you may lose a plastic worm. That’s why Sterling over at the bait shop sells packages of a half-dozen or more.
Crappie are still hunting minnows around brush. This is not a developing pattern. Crappie have been using brush since before ya’ll's daddies bought their first boat.
Find submerged cover, drop a minnow or jig into it and be patient — they’re crappie, they’re as persnickety as a spoiled house cat.
Do not spend the morning racing from one end of the lake to the other trying to find fish. Find the cover. Fish it.
Oh, and striped bass are out chasing shad along the rocks. Simple task here, get out at daybreak, find the bait balls along the shady banks and you will find the stripers.
Watch for surface activity. Watch the birds. Watch your electronics. If you see no bait and no fish, move on.
Don’t keep trying because the spot was good in 1998. The fish were not consulted then. Today’s fish are unaware of the 1998 convention.
The most interesting action may be below Keystone Dam, where blues and channel cats are taking cut bait out of the current.
Monday’s release was 14,523 cubic feet per second, which is not a little riffle. That is a roiling Golden Corral buffet during a power outage and everything must go. Think shad, stunned baitfish and assorted groceries just floating by.
Fresh cut or live shad is the obvious choice.
Fish the edges of the current, the seams where fast water meets slower water and the eddies where catfish can sit without burning all their energy. Fish do not generally choose the hardest possible place to live — that is mostly a human thing.
Do not throw your bait into the strongest current simply because it looks dramatic. Put it where the food is being deposited and the fish can chill comfortably.
And use good judgment below the dam.
Fourteen thousand cubic feet per second is a lot of moving water. It’s not scenery.
If you’re going to try and get close, either on the bank or in a boat, wear a life jacket. Stay outside restricted areas. Anchor carefully. Do not stand on slick rocks in heavy current or you’ll become someone else’s viral Tik Tok.
The river does not care how long you have been fishing.
The dropping lake also requires some caution upstream. Keystone has fallen nearly eight feet in less than a week. Rocks, timber and sandbars that were safely submerged are getting closer to being just “merged” maybe with your lower unit.
That includes the sandy humps north and west of Motorcycle Island and that one miserable stump out there that you have either hit, or you are about to. If you know, you know.
If your that I-know-this-lakelike- the-back-of-my-hand guy, it’s already got your number.
Slow down. Use your charts. Watch the depth finder.
The best summer advice is still the oldest: fish early, fish late, nap in the afternoon. Find shade, find moving water and slow down. Fish do not vanish when it gets hot. They move somewhere more comfortable (shade) and wait for the fishermen who know better.
Stop casting at 2 p.m. and calling it bad luck.