Freshwater Striper fishing on Lake Lanier can be very challenging which is why many people hire a Lake Lanier Fishing Guide. These are saltwater fish stocked in a freshwater lake. They are a nomadic fish that can migrate up to 8 miles a day. Staying on top of the movement of our striped bass requires being on the water everyday. There are historical seasons that are good starting points to locate and catch these hard fighting sport fish but they are notorious for throwing everyone a curve ball and doing something different.
Spring
As we roll into the spring and the water temp starts rising everything changes pretty drastically. The stripers start getting shallower and migrate all over the lake very fast. This is the time of year our stripers can be anywhere on our 38,000 acre lake and there will be multiple bites going on at the same time. There will be groups in our creeks feeding on threadfin shad and groups out over the main river channel feeding on the deep blueback herring. There will also be some small groups that migrate up both the Chestatee and Chattahoochee river systems to go through the spawning motions. No matter where you find them in the spring it is primarily a topwater/shallow bite. Spring is also a good time to target trophy size fish. The bigger stripers start feeding on bigger baits like gizzard shad that are 12-16” long.
Summer
Towards the end of spring as the water temp starts getting really warm our striped bass start migrating to the south end of Lake Lanier to spend the summer in what we call their “summertime refuge “. Stripers need cold highly oxygenated water to survive and during the summer moths most all of our striped bass population is in deep water on the south end of the lake. This time of year our stripers will get into some crazy big schools and normally feed really good. Our summer bite is probably the most consistent bite and known to put big numbers in the boat. By the end of the summer the deep water on the south end looses its dissolved oxygen and the stripers start moving around fast trying to find good oxygen levels.
Fall
This can be a tough time of year to fish but every year it goes down a little different. Once we get the cool fall nights and the lake starts it’s turnover process the surface layer starts holding most of the oxygen. Once this happens it kicks off our fall topwater bite. Huge schools of stripers blowing up all over the place. Most of these trips are topwater lure on trips. Then as the weather gets cold again the bait starts getting deeper and the stripers go into the winter creek pattern.
Winter
Most winters our stripers are holding in creek channels “north end and south end “ feeding on what I call a “river of bait”. There are creeks that have small bait pods in them and some have a section of solid deep bait that will last hundreds of yards long that can be easily found on your Humminbird electronics. That is the “river of bait”. The bigger schools of stripers will be around that mass of bait. Every now and then the stripers will push that bait to the surface or in the very back of the creek and you can catch them on topwater but most of the winter we catch them down lining live bait