12-7-2024 Fishing Report

Water temps are finally getting exactly where they need to be to turn the fish on. It’s dropped from the low 60’s to mid 50’s on Greenwood the last 4 days. The bigger lakes like Murray, Clarks Hill and Hartwell are still high 50’s for the most part. Greenwood being smaller cools faster on the cool downs and warms faster on the warm ups. When water temps get into the mid 50’s the threadfin shad become more and more lethargic and are easy prey for all of the game fish.

This is a great time of year for a mixed bag of species. This week, my groups caught really good numbers of stripers, spotted bass and white perch. On Greenwood you also get white bass in the mix. I encourage people to let them go because it is one of the few lakes where we still have a halfway decent whitebass population. The herring and white perch have about wiped them out in all of our other lakes.

I love to fish artificials all winter long casting as well as pulling with the trolling motor. Bama Rigs like the Captain Macks Mini Mack or Yumbrella Flash Mob Jr produce really well when paired with 3” baits. We also cast bucktails and vertically jig Berry’s spoons. On Murray, live bait is still doing well with herring and shiners on planer boards and some down lining as well.

Generally, birds will point you to the fish but it is absolutely critical that you do not run your motor into the groups of birds diving. It breaks up the schools if you blast into them with the big motor or even iddle into them looking for fish. Stop 150 yards away and ease in with the trolling motor and everybody can catch fish no matter how crowded it is. All it takes is one selfish fool to ruin it for everyone.