Lake Pleasant Fishing Report June 2021

The Striper and largemouth bass fishing at Lake Pleasant has been on fire the month of June! During the summer months, the largemouth bass, striped bass and white bass feed heavily at first light and the early risers are often rewarded with numbers or even "Personal Best."

There are several ways to target these drag pulling, deep water monsters and we will discuss a few techniques that have been most effective.

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#1- Top water and Swimbaits- Targeting visible surface feeders the first few hours of day light with a top water walking bait such as a Heddon Super Spook, or a 3-5" swimbait such as an Arizona Custom Baits Ringed swimbait or a Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper rigged on a 3/8-1/2oz jig head. You will want to rig your top water on a medium or medium/heavy action rod with 8-14lb monofilament line and your swimbait on a medium action rod with 8-12lb mono or fluorocarbon line. I actually use the same medium action spinning rod with 8lb monofilament line for almost all techniques mentioned in this article for my clients. As long as you have your drag set you can land fish up to 20lbs in open water. These techniques are also effective in the afternoon before sunset.

As soon as it is light enough to see, slowly make your way safely around the lake and look for the active feeding fish on the surface ("boils"). This time of year they are all over the lake starting from the marina to way up in the creek channels. During the month of June, many have been found around the mouths of the creek channels from the no wake buoys to 3/4 of the way back. In July and August, with the lake dropping quickly and water temps rising, they will move out of the creeks and be in the open, deep water. Come October, they will start moving back into the creeks as the water cools.

When you see a "boil" try and get as close as possible with the outboard and sneak in with your trolling motor. Try to make a long cast and land your bait right in the boil. Stripers are actually very spooky and will often dive deep once they hear the motor and sonar approaching. This will bring us into our next technique.

#2- Spooning- When you see the school on your electronics under your boat you can often count your swimbait down 20-30 seconds and reel through the school to pick a few up. When they reach depths greater then 30ft the spoon is your best option. You can use a variety of jigging or flutter style spoons to catch them and somedays they like one over the other. I prefer a 1/2-1oz crippled herring or Hopkins jigging spoon on the same medium action rod with 8lb monofilament line to get down deep quickly. They will usually pick it up on the fall or as you jig it up. Use a heavier medium/heavy action rod with 12-16lb line for the flutter spoons 5" or larger. The flutter spoon stays in the strike zone a little longer and when they start feeding on the gizzard shad this typically catches the larger size stripers and even largemouth bass. The striper move around a lot and as soon as they disappear from your electronics either start the process of looking for boils over or graph around until you find them deep again.

#3- Live or cut bait- Most of the shad will go deep in the summer time but if you can still find and net them shallow, this is the most effective way to almost guarantee a bite. You can use minnows and night crawlers and be effective but cut anchovies seem to be the next best thing to live shad. When you graph deeper fish during the summer months either drift over or anchor down and start chumming. (At this time) I do not offer overnight trips but you can set up your submersible lights at night which attracts zooplankton which attracts shad which attracts most predator fish. I like to cut the frozen anchovies into 1/4-1/2" pieces prior to a trip and keep frozen until baiting the hook or dropping down for chum.

I use the same medium action (spinning) rod set up with a drop shot rig, 6-8lb mono or fluorocarbon line, a size 2 bait or drop shot hook and a 1/4oz drop shot weight. Drop the bait down to the fish and they will either eat it as soon as it stops or when you slowly reel it up off the bottom. Stripers like a moving bait. If they are suspended over deep water then drop slowly until depth is reached and continue technique through the school. Believe it or not you will get more bites with lighter fluorocarbon because the refractive index of fluoro is close to that of water making it almost invisible to the fish. It also has very low stretch which makes it more sensitive and easier to detect bites. The biggest mistake I see is anglers using too heavy of line, so if fluorocarbon is out of your price range just use lighter 6-8lb mono and you will still get bit.

#4- Targeting Large Mouth- The same top water and swimbaits mentioned above have also been very effective for largemouth but target main lake points and deep structure. Largemouth are usually ambush predators and wait until the stripers push bait close to structure to feed. Throw both techniques across the points where activity is prevalent and work at a medium to fast retrieve.

If they don't respond to a reaction bait then use a drop shot technique with an artificial worm such as an Arizona Custom baits curly tail or drop shot worm. You can use the same medium action spinning set up listed above for anchovies, just nose hook or wacky rig the worm for best action. I like using my signature color "Patti Craw" as well as "Light oxblood red flake" or "ACB Punisher." Cast to the point and slowly drag the worm on the bottom out to deeper water. They have been sitting anywhere from 15-35ft and will go deeper as water temps rise.

I hope this fishing report brings you success on your next outing and if you would like to book a trip with me and experience Lake Pleasant fishing at it's finest lets get you on the schedule at www.justinpattioutdoors.com/book-online

By: Justin Patti