Current Lake Allatoona level is right at 832.48, a one foot drop from last Thursday, slowly revealing some humps and showing more structure off points. These warm October days have not allowed for any cooling of the overall 83° surface temps, but glimmers of rain and cooler temps are on the horizon with some relief being seen as early as this weekend.
The lineside catching has been sporadic on our recent trips, and peak daytime feeding hours still seem to be from 6:00-8:00 a.m. After this time, the bite seems to slow considerably. We've seen very little topwater action from the hybrids and stripers since last week. The Spots have been quite active throughout the entire day, and are quick to take an offering if properly placed when feeding on top or below. We had a blast chasing them early this afternoon in the channel from Kellogg Creek to Victoria Harbor, and hooked up with quite a few aerial acrobats.
The hybrids and stripers have been caught primarily on threadfin shad swimming on a freeline of 8lb test. No weight to only a small 3/0 spilt shot. This method has outfished others nearly 3:1 again this week.
While we haven't taken the plunge into full-time trolling, it has produced a few fish when scouting since last week as we pulled a Captain Mack's mini weighted with a 1.25 oz egg sinker about 120' back. We have been stopping to fish the schools with live bait once located.
Think summer patterns for the linesides and adapt accordingly. There's a fair amount of schoolies being found on the sonar from Bartow Carver to the Dam. While you'll see fish relating to structure off points and channel edges, we've run across them in open water of 100 feet just relating to schools of bait. They are moving around and one might move around with them if possible or simply find your best spots and wait for them to come.
This weekend should be decent fishing and we are even hoping for a stellar session or two ourselves. Tightlines!
