Thanks Ctom do you fish jerk baits much for eyes and if so what colors? We have some really big eyes just not many in the lake I fish and I don't know much about their habits.
The stick I mentioned and the blue fat boy below it in the pictures would get pulled on a three way right about now in the tailwaters of the area dams. Cold sensitive weeds in the backwaters haven't begun to plague the trollers below the dams yet so the window for pulling cranks is still open. Another two weeks and there will be so much grass in the water that pulling anything is a headache.....that's when I vertical jig plastics or jig blade baits. Blades are going right now already.
I know one area dam that's seeing the huge schools of shad below it now. The next dam down the line will likely have that activity within the week. Those shad are the primary forage while they are there and the cranks being pulled thru the water on three-ways rigs take a huge number of fish.
The water temps in the lake above my pet dam and below the rollers of the dam have dropped to 44 and 47 degrees respectively, about 7 degrees since Tuesday. The fall and early winter festivities are going to be going full throttle very soon.