Time: 5am - 11am

Water Temperature: 80 degrees (down lake) / 65 degrees (up lake)

Water Conditions: Slight Stain (down lake) / Clear (up lake)

Breakdown: The morning started off very slow, but as we neared daybreak we caught a couple short fish on a small brown and orange jig...fishing bluffs. We then moved into a small cut down lake and noticed that a shad spawn was occurring around the rock and rip-rap. We had a couple blow ups on top, but no takers. The water temperature down the lake was in the 80's. After the sun got up, we ran way up the lake until we found good current and grass. We never got any bites up that way even though the current was flowing and I think it may have been the fact that the water temperature was in the mid 60's. We finally made our way back down the lake around 10am. At this point we had not had a bite in about four hours. We started keying on thick lay down areas where they were in the sun with a 1/2 oz. flipping jig in green pumpkin with a Pit Boss Chunk. We put three keepers in the boat in about 30 minutes and called it a day.

We are little less than two weeks out from the picnic tournament on Patrick Henry, but my initial thought is that a slow and very methodical approach will produce better quality and the shad spawn may be the key to getting a couple keepers early.

I will be out on the water a couple more times over the next week, so check back for more reports in the future!