—
July 26
Surface temperatures on Lake Jocassee are about 82 degrees in the morning by the dam, warming to 84 by mid-day. Water levels are at 97.3% of full pool and clarity is normal.
Lake Jocassee trout fishing remains pretty strong, and Guide Sam Jones (864-280-9056) reports that while fish aren’t jumping in the boat – and they haven’t landed any 10-pounders – overall the bite is good. On his most recent trip his boat landed a nice 4 ½ pound brown trout and a solid 3 ½ pound rainbow to go with some smaller fish.
Fish have now gotten into the very deep range, and they are being caught 70-110 feet down. Everything is near the dam around the intakes and the spillway, and in addition to a good bite on Sutton and Apex spoons the live bait bite has gotten stronger. Large minnows are putting some fish in the boat. Overall the bite has not been time sensitive, and there isn’t much of an early morning bite compared to any other time of day. However, Sam has noticed that after 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning fish move into the deeper part of their depth range.
June 22
Surface temperatures on Lake Jocassee are in the low 80s and water levels are at 97.4% of full pool.
Lake Jocassee trout fishing has been pretty good recently, and according to Guide Sam Jones (864-280-9056) fish are starting to get into a summer pattern. No really big “citation” fish have been caught recently but they are catching some nice, healthy rainbow trout up to about 4 pounds.
While fish aren’t as deep as they will go they are moving deeper, and the shallowest fish that are now being caught are coming in the 40-foot range. They will get to 80 feet but aren’t generally that deep yet. Dropping a temperature probe into the water Sam has found that about 70 feet deep water temperatures are in the range of 65 degrees, the temperature where trout prefer to be, and that has been a productive depth. At times there has been an early morning bite when Duke is back-pumping but this bite seems to die off by about 8:00 when the sun gets up.
A few fish are being caught on bait but not many lately, and hardware has been working much better. Apex and Sutton spoons have been the best baits.
