7-5-2025 Fishing Report

We are right in the heart of our summer fishing. June and July fishing tends to be great. It means early starts and even fishing at night but with the heat that’s not a bad thing. Water temps are in the mid to high 80’s. Lots of techniques are working well right now. Down lining herring is of course a guide’s bread and butter in the summer. Find a good group of fish and put the bait’s just above them. But there also some really nice catches coming trolling right now. Lead core or down riggers are required to get down to the depths the fish are hanging. I went scouting at Hartwell and dropped out a single leadcore rod on a group of fish I found and caught 10 fish with three in the teens one morning recently.

Crappie are still on the deep brush but they will begin to get much tougher the further we get into July. I typically put the crappie gear up at some point in July and don’t get it back out until the end of September once the water gets back into the 70’s.

Plan for very early starts for morning trips. As we get further into July and August, the afternoon bite should get better on days when they are releasing water through the dams. That current in the lakes can really turn the bite on.