Logan Martin Lake / Mid August Report
By Reed Montgomery / Reeds Guide Service
Water Temperature: Mid-80′s / Water Clarity - Some stained water in the lake’s headwaters and its major feeder creeks from recent heavy down pours. Mid-to-lower lake clear water / Air Temperature: Lows in the upper 60′s to low 70′s - Daytime highs in the mid-to-upper 80′s / Weather - Some evening thunderstorms with partly cloudy skies. Some days in mid August have been near 91-93 degrees.
Lake Level: Full pool
Aggressive Coosa River Spotted Bass Hitting Topwater Lures
As several recent fishing trips to Logan Martin Lake (only 30 miles from Birmingham, Al.) have shown, you better be armed with an assortment of some very enticing topwater lures, if your planning a mid-summer fishing trip here. Especially if your quarry is the well known and very formidable adversary…the Coosa River Spotted Bass!
Compared to the more noted and quite lazy summertime bass, the largemouth bass, these Coosa River spotted bass are a mean and lean fighting machine. Their difference in size is another trait, usually the size of the largemouth bass cannot be compared.
Spotted bass can reach 10 pounds maybe more, but a full grown largemouth bass can be over 20 pounds, while it has survived twice as many years as the spotted bass as well. But when a four pound spotted bass is on the end of your line, there’s no doubt what you have hooked into!
Recently the month of August has taken a turn for the better. No longer is (mostof) the state of Alabama in a state of drought. Some places (such as Alabaster, Al.) have received as much as six inches of rain in just a few hours! This rain can muddy up the lake’s headwaters and its incoming major feeder creeks…fast!
Often an all day rain or at any time a sudden heavy, thunderstorm can move in and bring several inches of rain in a short period of time. As Logan Martin lake’s feeder creeks and small streams suddenly swell, the current speeds up from the incoming rain waters and then the water clarity turns from lightly stained conditions to muddy conditions, fast!
This in turn signals the spotted bass (and some striped bass and largemouth bass) to go into a feeding frenzy, with a wide selection of very edible prey to select from to be found when scrounging around in the lake’s headwaters, its incoming feeder creeks, small streams and even small incoming rain waters like culverts and under bridges.
So, anglers should keep in mind as long as its cloudy, rainy weather and the air temperatures have been dropping like recently with unseasonable nighttime lows in the upper 60′s and daytime highs in the low to mid 80′s…think topwater!
Not only then during these cooler periods of summer but at dawn, late evenings and even all throughout the cooler nights, bass of all kinds on Logan Martin Lake will hit a topwater lure! But only if your there throwing walking type topwater lures like Heddon’s Zara Spooks and Lucky Craft’s Sammies.
Or a number of other dozens of choices on today’s topwater bassin’ menu! Lures like buzz baits, poppers, chuggers, both single and double-bladed prop baits, single-hook plastic frogs and double hook hollow-bodied rubber fake frogs and the list goes on.
Or you can always call on Reed Montgomery of Reeds Guide Service…first! And see how its done! (See info: “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Fishing the Zara Spook” by Reed Montgomery at the Articles Link section on www.fishingalabama.com ) Day or night fishing trips available all summer long!
Thanks and Good Fishin’
Reed Montgomery Owner of Reeds Guide Service, “Logan Martin Lake’s and all of Alabama’s oldest, professional -bass fishing only — guide service for over 40 years”
