Lanier Winter Ditch Bite
with Jim Farmer, Jimmy “LJ” Harmon and Jim “Jimbo” Mathley
You have heard about the good winter ditch bite at Lake Lanier for spotted bass. But exactly what is it, how do you find good ditches and how do you catch fish out of them?
Three local expert fishermen on Lanier, Jim Farmer, Jimmy “Lanier Jim” Harmon and Jim “Jimbo” Mathley share their tips and methods for the ditch bite. All three “Jims” guide on Lanier, know the lake well and keep up with the patterns the fish are following. And they are friendly competitors, sharing information and helping each other, and all of us, with their skills in catching Lanier bass.
Jim Farmer lives on the lake, paints custom baits and making planner boards that are very popular, at www.castawaybaits.com/. He fishes Lanier year-round and follows the bass as they move in annual patterns. In December 2016 he won the UGA Fishing Team fund raiser North Georgia Fall Classic on Lanier with 19.6 pounds and had big fish with a five-pound, twelve-ounce spot from ditches.
“A good winter pattern that usually starts in November, hits its peak in late December early January and last through February is the ditch bite” Jim said. He defines a ditch as a submerged valley between two hills. A defined gulley does not have to be present, but any small drop created by a point running out from the sides, creating some contour change, makes it better.
To find the bass, Jim starts at the mouth of the valley in 50 to 60 feet of water and slowly idles up the middle toward the shallows in the back, watching his electronics for baitfish. Baitfish are the key. Bass are following them and are unlikely to be present if no bait is visible.
Bass will show up under or near the bait, either shad or blueback herring, at some point in the ditch. Side and down scan helps you find them since they cover a wider area of the ditch.
First thing in the morning bass will often be in the back of the ditch feeding on bait that has moved to the shallow end during the night. Start in the back if you see bait idling in. Jim catches them on a jerkbait, keeping his boat in water deep enough that he is covering water 10 to 15 feet deep with his Lucky Craft Pointer 100.
Jim always keeps a jigging spoon and underspin ready while throwing his jerkbait. If he spots bait or bass under the boat as he cast a jerkbait, he will quickly drop the spoon straight down to them and bounce it along in small hops through them.
When the bass are showing up at a certain depth, he will cast a one quarter to three-eights ounce underspin, let it sink to the depth the fish are feeding, and slowly move it along the bottom at that contour. He cautions that it takes a while for the lighter bait to fall to the bottom, but the fish seem to hit it better.
“Fish the underspin as slowly as you can, then slow it down even more,” Jim said. Crawl your underspin, being careful to keep it right on the bottom. And he will even “deadstick” it, letting it lie on the bottom in one place for several seconds to get a bite. The deeper the water the harder it is to do this, but slow is the key to catching fish on an underspin.
As the sun gets above the trees the bait and bass move even deeper, often out to 50 to 60 feet of water. At that depth the spoon is Jim’s goto bait since it can get to the bottom quickly and catch the fish. They may hold on a slick bottom or around brush or standing timber. Hop your spoon at the depth they are holding.
Jimmy “LJ” Harmon lives on the lake, guides, installs electronics and fine tunes them for you on the lake and sells his “Fruity Worms” and other baits at www.lanierbaits.com.
LJ says the ditch bite last most of the winter, depending on how fast it gets cold in the fall and how fast it warms in the early spring. This year it started early in November and, if we have a cold winter, will last into March when the fish start moving shallow in the pre-spawn. Not all will move at one time so check out the ditches for concentrations of fish rather than scattered pre-spawners. And the spots will follow ditches to the spawning flats, so it is a good pattern to start.
“A good ditch can be very short, just a hundred feet long,” LJ says. And it can be wide or narrow. The key is that it drops into water 50 feet deep or deeper. Standing timber out in it helps hold bass as do brush piles in the ditch. But bait must be present, or the bass will not be there. Bass will be on many different ditches on the lower end of the lake, you just have to search until you find the ones holding bait and bass that day.
“Look for loons in the mouths of ditches,” LJ says. Loons push bait into the ditches where bass wait to ambush them. The birds and bass work together to herd the bait up and feed, so finding loons is always a good indication it is a place to stop and look.
LJ agrees that bait and bass will often be in the backs of the ditches early in the morning, so he starts there if he sees bait in a ditch, but throws a crankbait to start. Work around the back of the cove but don’t spend much time in one place unless you see the bait, both bait and bass move a lot this time of year.
When you find the bait and bass you can follow them as they move up and down the ditch feeding. A good school of fish may produce four or five bites and stop hitting, but you can often come back to them later catch more.
“You have to find the baitfish to find the bass,” LJ says. Good electronics are critical, and they need to be fine-tuned to see the bait from 20 to 60 feet deep. A good GPS map will let you focus on the depth they are holding. As the sun rises higher, he expects the fish to move out to 40 to 50 feet deep. He sets his Lakemaster Map Chip to highlight 15 to 40 feet in green then follows that path with his Humminbird Side and Down Imaging scan to locate them.
Bass like to hold on drops and even a quick one-foot change in depth on a clean bottom will hold them. They will suspend around brush piles and at the base of it, and in standing timber from the bottom to the top. To catch them you have to get your bait right in front of them.
A Georgia Blade Spoon will catch them, and he likes the way they fall when jigging them. He tries different sizes, from half to one ounce, to see what the fish want that day but also depending on water depth. Spoons can be fished on wood cover since they shake off when hung up fairly easily if you don’t set the hook too hard.
LJ’s favorite bait is a drop shot worm. He can control it at the depth the fish are holding and fish it right in front of them. And he says most days he catches bigger fish on them.
You can watch your bait fall on your sonar and stop it right in front of the fish. That is easy when you see them right on the bottom or see bait so thick on the bottom they hide the bass. Drop your weight to the bottom and keep your line tight, keeping your worm six to ten inches off the bottom.
If the fish are on brush or timber, watch your bait fall until it is right in front of them and stop it there. LJ loves to watch as the bass comes over to hit his bait. Sometimes they will come up and meet it when they are aggressive.
In timber, the fish may be suspended anywhere. He says he may be fishing in timber where the bottom is 50 to 60 feet deep, but the bass are only 20 feet below the surface in the timber, way off the bottom. That is an ideal time to drop a Fruity Worm to them since you can keep it at any depth you need and keep it there.
Jim “Jimbo” Mathley lives in Cumming and has been guiding on Lanier full time for about eight years at Jimbo’s Lake Lanier Spotted Bass Guide Service www.jimboonlanier.com . He, like the other two Jims, are great at helping fishermen learn to catch spots on his trips and seminars.
“Ditches are the highways spots follow in Lanier,” Jimbo said. They seem to make a morning commute to the shallows for breakfast then follow the baitfish buffet back to deeper water where they hold and spend the day eating them. You can catch them all day long if you find and follow the schools as they move.
Jimbo agrees the ditch bite last from November to the spawn in March each winter. During this time both bait and bass move a lot and you have to find them to catch them. He sticks to the lower lake, mostly below Browns Bridge, since that’s where the bigger spots live and the ditch pattern is more consistent.
“The ditch bite is gold for a guide,” Jimbo says. It is consistent for several months, easy to pattern and follow day to day. But you must be flexible since the schools of bait and bass move so much.
A good ditch today may not hold fish tomorrow, but in three or four days it may be good again. Don’t get stuck fishing places where you caught fish in the past, look for them every day with electronics to catch fish consistently.
A ditch to Jimbo is a creek arm or some kind of channel going from deep water to shallow. Standing timber in the ditch makes it better. Any drop or irregularity in the ditch is a key spot for them to feed, so he concentrates on tight contour changes in the ditch if it holds bait.
He also likes to start in the back of the ditches throwing a Spro McStick jerkbait and goes straight to the back first thing in the morning. If he does not catch fish quickly, he moves to another ditch since this bite does not last long.
As the day proceeds and the bait and bass move deeper, he follows them out, looking for timber, brush and even docks in 40 to 50 feet of water where the bass hold. If he sees bait in an area, he will cast a Super Spin underspin with a Keitech three-inch swimbait on it, let it sink to the contour line or wood cover and fish it very slowly along the bottom.
When the bait and bass are set up later in the morning on timber or brush 40 to 50 feet deep, he gets on top of them and fishes straight down with a spoon or drop shot. A chrome or white spoon works well for this and he rigs his drop shot on a one quarter sinker about 18 inches below a shad or dark color Fruity Worm.
The bass are eating both threadfin shad and blueback herring on the ditch bite, so sometimes a small bait is better than a bigger one. Flexibility is the key both in finding fish and catching them, so be willing to change places as well as baits often.
When you find fish on deep timber or brush, drop your spoon or drop shot to them, watching your sonar to keep it in front of them. The bass may be anywhere from 20 to 50 feet deep under bait and can be around wood cover or contour lines. But they will be under bait.
All three Jims agree on the ways to find and catch ditch fish right now. Be flexible, check a lot of places, find the bait and catch bass on jerkbait, crankbait, drop shot or spoon. You must be willing to move around a lot to find the fish each day but when you do you will catch good spotted bass from the ditches.
The ditch bite is wide open right now. Use these tips and tactics to learn how to catch big spots for the next two months.
Ji