Decent morning on Athens

Despite the full moon, the heat, the crowded conditions, and the skiers....fished 5a-10a....Boated 7 on 10 bites.....most were 2 pounders on a spook....with two nice chunky 3-8's on a C-Rigged watermelon red brush hog.
Never gets old.

Yup. I was catching 2.5 or 3 pound schooling fish by marina mid day.

You guys just got lucky
Don't you know they poisoned the grass on Athens and the fishing turned bad
Athens is dead with all the grass dead

Yup. Gone. AMWA even said they were closing the lake to everyone it was so bad fishing. I slipped him a $20 to be able to keep fishing

The schooling has been fun to watch. It occurs in several places on Lake Athens but, lately, boats haven't had to leave the launch area as the schoolers pop up in small groups and run after bait fish within 100 yards.

The schools I have seen haven't been very large, like 10 or 20 bass in them . . . I've seen much larger schools on other lakes, but they hang around for a long time. They hit the surface and chase, then go under, then back up 20 or more yards away maybe minutes later. Cool.

On the far side of the 2495 bridge, about a week or so ago, I was in my kayak and they were breaking in front of me like dolphins. It made me wonder whether my noise and action was activating/stimulating them.

These are not always the typical 1 to 1.5 lbs. sort of schooling bass. Sometimes the schools have had some in more of the 2.5 to 3 pound range.

It's raining out here as I type . . . Sunday at 6:30PM. Always good to get rain in July.

Second "dose" of grass killer was applied a few days ago. The first didn't work. My guess is with all of this rain, we'll be able to walk across Lake Athens on foot soon. It is very heavily vegetated this year.

Brad