April on Alabama’s Coosa River Lake’s Logan Martin Lake and Lay Lake By Reed Montgomery

 

 

April on Alabama’s Coosa River Lake’s Logan Martin Lake and Lay Lake

 

By Reed Montgomery Owner of Reeds Guide Service Alabaster, Alabama. “Alabama’s oldest, professional “bass fishing only” guide service, guiding on all of Alabama’s lakes for over 40 years” Phone (205) 663-1504 Website www.fishingalabama.com

Logan Martin lake and Lay lake. Admiring these two Coosa River lakes during the spring spawn, as the month of April arrives, means taking a good look a two totally different man made, Coosa River Impoundments.

Why you may ask?

Here’s the difference. Specific situations, of which spring time anglers will encounter, all during the month of April…bedding time for both Coosa River spotted bass and some big, largemouth bass!

 

LOGAN MARTIN LAKE

Impounded 1964

Lake Level Down 5 feet (First Week of April) usually full pool by the end of April

Water Temperature (early April) upper 60′s to low 70′s

Air Temperature (Predicted weather for the first week of April) -  Nightime lows in the upper 30′s to low 40′s with daytime highs from upper 60′s to mid 70′s.

Logan Martin Lake, impounded in 1964, will be 50 years of age in 2014. Even at this age, there are still no weeds to be found on this fifty mile long impoundment, during the first week of April.

Due to severe lake draw down each winter season (with the lake still down a few feet  during the first week of April), bass anglers will encounter very little aquatic weed growth to dabble their fake frogs and other weedless lures in.

That is, until about mid May. When the lake’s new growing aquatic weeds, will hold some of the lakes biggest, post-spawn largemouth bass!

Astute anglers will take notice of this low water period on Logan Martin lake, a time that traditionally takes place (for about six months) from late Fall, throughout all of the Winter season, and the lake is still low the first week of April!

But as Logan Martin’s “astute” bass anglers will see, all of this changes by the end of April when the lake is slowly returned to normal, full pool level. But during early April (as during the entire winter season), there is an excellent oppurtunity for bass anglers to take notice of all that shallow water cover that bass love to inhibit. Soon it will be gone.

All of which will be under water when the lake is returned to full pool, for another six months! So take notice. Or, take pictures. Mark spots on a map. Or take notes and GPS coordinates to help you return to a precise spot later on.

Hidden spots that can often be far from the lakes original shoreline. Places other anglers overlook or they just plain forget whats down there.

In the past, Alabama’s first offshore bass anglers triangulated these “soon to be hidden underwater bass hangouts” exposed places easily seen during lake draw down, that are often covered in wood or rock cover, or feature some type of bottom irregularity.

“Big bass hangouts”, that were easy to return to back then, by savvy anglers using land marks that lined up precisely on each side of the lake.

* Today’s electronics make it so much easier to return to these hidden underwater spots, places many anglers overlook that can hold loads of undisturbed bass! 

Exposed boulders or rock piles, stump rows or big isolated stumps with huge root systems, brush piles, laying trees, log jams or laying logs and even resident plated fish attractors are just a few of the places both spotted bass and largemouth bass hang out or feed around, as the spring spawn slowly comes to an end in May.

Spotted bass will hold around bottom changes or bottom iregularities, rock piles, lake bottoms featuring small pebble rocks or small isolated boulders or rocks, red clay bottoms, road beds and first and secondary points. Prior to spawning in early April. 

Other previously exposed wood cover can be man made piers, especially those piers found in flats in the backs of shallow creeks and pockets or along main lake flats, where some bass spawn in April and later seek shade in late May and June.

As Logan Martin Lake is returned to full pool, by mid April, late spawning bass will invade the new growing grass and wood cover and bass that have already spawned will be shallow and feeding as well. During what most anglers live for…a post spawn topwater bonanza!

 

 

LAY LAKE

Impounded 1914

Lake Level Full Pool

Water Temperature Upper 60′s to low 70′s (first week of April)

Air Temperature  Nighttime lows in the upper thirties to low forties.  With daytime highs near seventy degrees. (first week of April)

For those anglers that have not fished either Logan Martin Lake or Lay lake, there is a major difference in these two, now age-old Alabama lakes. Not only in the age and appearance of these two impoundments (during the month of April great bass fishing!) but in the overall bass fishing as well.  

Lay lake, like upper Coosa River Reservoir Logan Martin Lake, is an old Corps of Engineer built lake. But Lay lake, impounded in 1914, is twice the “fifty years of age” of Logan Martin lake! 

By the year 2014  Lay lake will be 100 years old! (Anglers should have some kind of Birthday party!) Only Alabama’s Warrior River Impoundment Bankhead lake, impounded in 1916, comes close, as the states second oldest, man made impoundment.

The appearance of Lay lake is a total change for bass anglers as well, much weedier than the weedless upstream waters of Logan Martin Lake, during the month of April. With Lay lake kept at or near full pool year round, it is an aquatic weed-infested lake, year round.

* With the recent introduction of invasive aquatic weeds Eurasian millfoil and hydrilla, these thick and stringy weeds are now found growing in every season (even during winter) and these weeds can now be found growing, lake wide.

Largemouth bass bed around Lay’s aquatic weeds. They recuperate from the spring spawn living in and around the lakes shallow growing aquatic weeds and feeding on its inhabitants. During the hot days of summer these largemouth bass bury up in the lakes thickest growing weeds.

Even during Fall and Winter Lay lakes largemouth bass can be found feeding, cruising and mingling with other bass while living in and around Lay lakes aquatic weeds. Or they can be found with spotted bass cruising along weeds lines daily and grouping up around isolated, often much deeper growing weeds.

Lay lake also has an excellent spotted bass habitat for bass anglers to explore during April. The lakes headwaters boasts of some of the best early spring spotted bass fishing around.

Fishing the tail race waters of upstream Logan Martin lake dam, anglers can see some tremendous days of fooling dozens of spotted bass, often mixed in with striped bass, white bass and largemouth bass, all throughout the month of April!

The mid to lower portion of Lay lake displays Wilsonville Steam Plant, located near Yellow leaf Creek. A warm water discharge system, spotted bass mingle around with other fish species in early spring, that sits right on a deep river bank lined with rocks.

Right below Wilsonville Steam Plant, there are timber-laden islands, main river drop-offs and ledges, and plenty of main lake points and creek mouths that Lay’s big spotted bass inhibit year round, especially in April, when they are often found spawning nearby.

Mid Lay lake has an area called “the narrows.” It features an old and very deep, funneled-down river channel that is bordered by rock bluffs, huge boulders, standing timber, aqautic weeds and water in excess of 70 feet deep. Prime spotted bass habitat, as they can be seen actually hanging on the beds, lining the banks of these deep, rock bluffs.

So as you can see its all about the lakes appearance, its age and the many ways Alabama bass anglers can pursue their quarry the “largemouth bass” and the feisty, “Coosa River Spotted Bass” during the spring spawning month of April.

Then May arrives and it gets even better. Topwater time!

But you better hurry and get that boat out and go fishing. For it will be all gone until next year, as summer slowly sneeks in and spring fads away…

Until then, Thanks and Good Fishin’

Reed Montgomery, Owner of Reeds Guide Service, “Guiding on Lay Lake, Logan Martin  Lake and all of Alabama’s other lakes, fishing for bass for over 40 years”

Reed Montgomery

About Reed Montgomery

Alabama's Oldest, Professional "Bass Fishing Only" Guide Service For Over 40 Years Fishing all of Alabama's Lakes for all Species of Bass and Striped Bass.

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