With summer coming soon and with it already very hot, water temps have pushed into the lower 80s, resulting in a thermocline setting in around 22 feet which means very few fish will be in water deeper than that.
Sandies will begin to stack up on main lake points anywhere from 11-15 feet depending on how hot the water temps get to. And as they stack up the slab bite will go away and the way to catch these fish is to troll, reason being is the fish want something that will come right by them and not and up and down presentation.
My number 1 way is the hellbender/pet spoon combo, which is a magnum hellbender modified by removing the hooks and tail spinner blade and adding a weight such as a1/2 oz bell sinker where the front hook was removed, then attach a 3-5 ft leader with a small pet spoon behind it, you can also use small jigs or tail spinners instead of a pet spoon, and jet divers or Trip z divers are also good to troll with.
The main thing is not to let out too much line, for example if the hump or point you are fishing is 15 feet you should let out 45-50 feet of line behind the boat, rule of thumb is 3 feet let out for each foot of depth.
Also troll and walking speed or about 3.2 mph.
Hybrids can also be caught this way but they tend to suspend around the edges of humps, again holding just shove the thermocline, steer your boat around the edges of these humid and let out more line, around 75 feet will get your baits down 17-18 feet.
If you have a downrigger you can get large baits down to deeper depths than the above mentioned methods.
Remember to troll in straight lines and once fish are found, throw a marker buoy to give you a visual reference point to navigate towards.
