Trying Newer Waters

Lake "Lilly" as the locals call it, is a dam/river system type lake that is used to generate power, which means things can change as they draw water or when they stop drawing water, which also means you may have to change tactics accordingly.

Back about 15 years ago, I used to fish this lake 3 or 4 times a week, before marriage and kids! Lol, but then we moved farther away, and I just didn’t have the time I used to so I stayed closer to home, so when my good friend, Jeff Rose said he was on some good fish, I jumped at the chance to take a trip in his boat.

We started out working mid lake humps, looking for isolated rocks and trees. Fish were in 17 to 23 FOW and not super active. We did get some that way but decided to explore other options for more active fish.

Next, we started using the side scan feature of Jeff's electronics, which was key in finding what we were looking for, and we found it.... steep shorelines with sunken trees and brush, the fish were very specific and wanted the brush right on the 23 to 30 FOW drop.

Fish were STACKED like crazy but very reluctant to take what we were throwing. Jeff is an amazing fisherman and he figured out that the only way to make them bite was to put it right in their face and then slowly work it away from them to entice the bite. After watching him take me to school, I decided to follow his lead and then I was in the game as well.

Baits included: Eurotackle Z-Vibers, B-Vibes, Northland Tackle Thumper jigs and Impulse Leeches rigged on round jigheads, the Core swimbait from Northland was on that list as well.

Although we didn’t really put a solid pattern together we did catch multiple fish from each spot we tried, the key was to just keep experimenting, also, remember that when the water is as warm as it was and when the fish are deep, like over 25 feet, it's a good idea to only catch what you want to keep as they don’t always recover so good.

The quality of fish over the last 10 or 15 years has gotten very good, our fish averaged 12/13 inches with lots of fish over 14 and there are also large pike and lots of big bass as well, I will definitely be spending more time on "Lilly" in the near future.