I can catch a bass!

Choices, choices. Fishermen in the central part of Georgia might have a hard time deciding where to go fishing this summer. From big lakes to farm ponds and from rivers to middle sized lakes we have many choices. Pick one of the mid-sized lakes in this part of the state and you will find willing bass. You may also find calm waters and relatively peaceful fishing.

In middle Georgia High Falls, Juliette and Tobesofkee offer excellent fishing but two of them have special motor restrictions you must follow. Those restrictions translate into calmer fishing but make it more difficult to cover water if you are used to zooming around in a fast bass boat.

Head to middle Georgia this month and fish one of these lakes. Each has differing cover, structure and age classes of bass so you can pick what you like best. Or fish all three for a variety of fishing experiences.

High Falls

High Falls is about two miles east of I-75 north of Forsyth. It is an old Georgia Power lake of 650 acres and all of it is a state park. The lake is closed from sundown to sunrise to boats and has very restricted bank access. Motors are limited to 10 horsepower or less but boats with bigger motors may be used if the motor is not cranked. State size and creel limits apply to the largemouth bass in the lake.

Located on the Towaliga River, High Falls is a very fertile lake and the largemouths grow big. According to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division the numbers of bass in the lake has been increasing over the past several years and half of the keeper bass are over 15 inches long. High Falls ranks near the top of Georgia lakes for numbers of 15 to 25 inch bass

Ted Will, Regional Supervisor for the DNR WRD West Central Georgia Fisheries Management Division says the healthy population of largemouth coupled with the relatively low fishing pressure means you should catch good numbers of nice bass. There are many big bass in the lake so your chance of catching a quality fish is good at High Falls, too.

High Falls is shallow and most channels have filled in with silt over the years, making the bottom bowl shaped. It is full of stumps and other wood cover and that type cover is the key. Docks and brushpiles add to the amount of wood and there is a good bit of grass in the water by summertime.

Glen Jones and Tracy Parks live in the Griffin area near the lake and were childhood friends. They got back together a few years ago and fish the lake a lot with each other and with friends and family. Both have caught seven pound plus bass from High Falls. They have also fished some of the Jon boat tournament trails tournaments on the lake.

Worms are Glen’s and Tracy’s favorite baits and they fish both Texas and Carolina rigs. When fishing together they vary what each is using until the bass show them what they want. Glen likes big worms and will usually start with a Zoom Old Monster or a Chompers 10 inch worm. Tracy will rig a smaller worm like a Zoom U-Tail on his Texas rig. For Carolina rigs Glen will start with a Zoom Mag 2 and Tracy will usually start with a Zoom Trick worm.

Fish worms through and around any wood cover you can find. Most docks are on posts and have brush piles around them. Stump beds are common in many areas of the lake and you will see blowdowns on banks all around the lake. All hold bass.

Topwater baits are also good and Tracy likes a white buzz bait with Glen following up with a Chug Bug or Pop-R. Spinnerbaits and Rattle Traps will catch fish, too. All these baits are fished along grass edges and over shallow grass to draw strikes.

You can put in using the ramp at the park at the dam and work up from it. The left bank going up is lined with docks while the right bank is open. The state park campground is on the right side. Above it there are some areas with stumps and grass beds to fish. With a small motor it will take a good while to get to the area where Buck Creek, Watkins Bottom and Brushy Creek split into arms off the river.

If you put in on Buck Creek at the ramp there you will be closer to more shallow fishing. Buck Creek is full of stumps and docks not far above the ramp and bridge. Just downstream of the bridge Brushy Creek enters on the left and has good fishing around wood and grass. Out and across the Towaliga River is Watkins bottom that is similar.

One good summertime pattern is to go up the Towaliga River as far as you can. Where the lake narrows down to just river channel you will find some good flats with grass to fish and up in the channel you can flip to blowdowns and overhanging brush to catch some big largemouth. Many tournaments are won on that pattern. Just make sure you leave plenty of time to be back at the ramp and off the lake by sundown.

Juliette

Lake Juliette is a 3600 acre Georgia Power lake about 15 miles east of I-75 and Forsyth. It provides water for coal fired Plant Scherer and has little inflow from Rum Creek so the water stays very clear. Juliette is filled each spring by pumping water from the nearby Ocmulgee River. Since the water is so clear grass grows all over the lake and down to surprising depths.

Standing timber was left when the lake was built. On the lower lake it was topped out well below the surface in most areas but the upper lake is filled with stumps right at the high water line. You must follow the channel in that area.

Motors are limited to 25 horsepower on Juliette but you can put in boats with bigger motors if you don’t crank them. The lake is too big to effectively fish with just a trolling motor, though. Much of the best summer fishing is out in open water and you can fish at night but you must be very careful due to the standing timber.

Ted Will and the WRD say the lake is infertile and populations of largemouth are lower than most middle Georgia lakes. Due to the slow growth rate there is no size limit on bass on the lake so you can keep ten bass any size. The lake is on a Wildlife Management Area but you need only a Georgia fishing license, no WMA stamp is required to fish here.

Baitfish in the lake include big gizzard shad and blueback herring. The bluebacks complete with bass fry for food and even eat them and the size of the herring and gizzard shad means it is tough for a small bass to grow to a size big enough to eat them. This may create long term problems for the lake but right now there are more than enough bass fry and small bass in the lake.

Although populations of bass are low there are good numbers of quality bass in the lake. About one-fourth of the bass are 15 inch long or longer and average bass caught weigh about a pound and a half. Monster bass weighing 12 to 16 pounds have been caught from the lake and it is not unusual for a tournament limit of five bass to weigh 20 pounds at the monthly tournaments on the lake.

The timber and the grass combine to offer lots of cover for bass and they are key to catching them. Grass lines form in deep water and standing timber with the grass just improves the fishing. The blueback herring in the lake mean bass are oriented to the surface during the summer.

Chad Hitt grew up in Forsyth and he and his father fish together in the monthly tournament at Juliette. They have been consistent in their catches and last year through nine months they had a 3.2 pound average for the fish they weighed in. Their best five-fish limit in a tournament weighed 17.66 pounds and their biggest bass was a 6.11 pounder. Chad’s best bass from Juliette is a 7.75 pound fish.

Bass at Juliette hold fairly deep, from 10 to 18 feet in the summer and fall, according to Chad. They hold in the grass and wood cover and will come up and eat a bait worked over them or through the cover. Topwater and worms both work well now.

Chad will start out with a topwater plug like a Pop-R or Rico and fish the grass line around the bank. There is often a visible grass line where the hydrilla grows up to the surface then drops off. There will be grass deeper than the line but the bass often hold near it. Fish at an angle working your popper close to this drop.

If the bass don’t want the topwater bait or after the sun gets high Chad will switch to a Texas rigged Zoom Mag 2 worm with a fairly light lead to fish through the grass. He works it slowly moving it through the grass where the bass are holding. If the bottom is clean with little grass Chad will switch to a jig head Trick worm and fish it on the bottom.

You can put in near the dam to fish the open lower end of the lake. There are many good pockets and small creeks with grass and timber in them, and the humps and shallows on the main lake are covered with grass beds. The open water in this area can get rough in a hurry when the wind gets up so be careful in small boats.

The upper end of the lake has a ramp and it is right in the standing timber. Follow the channel in this area because most of the trees have rotted off right at the high water mark. If the lake is down a little you can see many of them but if it is full it is very dangerous.

In this area fish the points and creek channels in the timber. You will see an old road bed crossing the lake between the ramp and the power plant and both ends of it can be good, too. There will usually be grass on these spots mixed in with the wood and you will need to fish it slowly and carefully to cover the places a bass will hold. Use heavy tackle so you can get them out of the wood when you hook a fish.

Tobesofkee

Lake Tobesofkee is a 1750 acre lake owned by Bibb County and located a couple of miles west of I-75 in Macon. It is ringed with houses and there are several parks open to the public on the lake. The lake gets very crowded in the summer with pleasure boaters and skiers since there are no motor restrictions.

The lake has a good bit of rock and grass cover in it and there are many brushpiles built by fishermen. The docks around the lake also add to the type of cover the bass like. State size and creel limits apply and you must have a Georgia fishing license. Access to the lake is expensive at the county operated parks.

Will says there are lots of keeper size bass in the lake and fishing has been improving for the past several years. Good spawns two and three years ago mean large numbers of those year class bass are reaching keeper size and better now. You should be able to catch a lot of 12 to 14 inch bass at Tobesofkee this summer.

Local pot tournaments move to night fishing this time of year because of the crowds during the day and the fishing is better in the dark. Weekdays are not too bad but you can hardly fish the lower lake on a pretty weekend summer day. The upper lake offers some protected shallows with grassbeds and brush that holds fish but that area is better late or early in the day as well as at night, too.

Ricky Randall has lived in the Macon area all his life and has fished Tobesofkee often. He fished with two local bass clubs and now he and his dad fish mostly pot tournaments. They often get a check at the weekly tournaments on Tobesofkee.

A few years ago Ricky and his dad had their best catch ever on the lake, seven keepers that weighed 30 pounds on a day they just went to the lake to check it out since the water was low. They have weighed in a six bass limit at just over 21 pounds in a tournament there.

Weedbeds and riprap are good places to catch bass on Tobesofkee and Ricky fishes them with a variety of baits. He will parallel the rocks with a small crankbait like a #5 or #7 Shadrap then go back along it with Trick worms and a jig and pig. The grass beds are water willow and they are fished with Trick worms, topwater and a jig and pig.

A lot of bass at Tobesofkee will hold around 14 to 15 feet deep on structure and cover out on the lake. Ricky will look for schools of shad and expects bass to be on the closest brushpile or channel drop. A big plug like a Mann’s 20 Plus, Norman DD22N or Fat Free Shad will catch them when cranked down to the depth they are holding.

You can put in near the dam at the big county park and fish all over this small lake if you have a bass boat. The creeks that go back under Mosley Dickson Road on your right as you go up the lake all have good riprap to fish as does the bridge up the river on Lower Thomaston Road. Those creeks and the structure near the mouths of them hold fish this time of year, too.

The lake will narrow down then open back up above the bridge on Lower Thomaston Road. This big area has several small feeder creeks with grass lining them and are good places to fish. They are more protected than the lower lake but skidoos and skiers still make it difficult to fish even here in the summer.

Try these mid-size lakes in the middle of Georgia for different kinds of bass fishing this summer. Explore them to find honey holes that will pay off in numbers of bass as well as some big fish, especially on High Falls. All of them will provide good fishing and you can find peace and quiet on two of them if that is what you are looking for while bass fishing.

Nice spot and largemouth from Wedowee

Catching May Bass at Wedowee

     May is an amazing month for bass fishermen.  Many big bass are hungry after the spawn and feed heavily. Some are still on the beds early in the month so you can sight fish if you like that. And males are guarding fry, making them aggressive and easy to catch.  This is a good month for catching lots of bass as well as landing one big enough to brag about.  You would be hard pressed to find a better May lake than Wedowee.

May bass fishing on Lake Wedowee is a pleasant surprise to many who have not tried it.  Limited access keeps big tournaments off the lake so it is not real crowded.  The lake is full of good sized spots that are very aggressive.  And you can catch some big largemouth if you target them.

Dammed in 1983, Wedowee is the newest Alabama Power Lake and is officially known as R.L.Harris Reservoir.  It is on the Tallapoosa River and covers just less than 11,000 acres on it and the Little Tallapoosa River and has 270 miles of shoreline.

The steep, rocky banks and clear water favor spotted bass and they are the predominate species on the lake.  Wedowee is not a real fertile lake so the Alabama DNR set a slot limit, requiring the release of all bass between 13 and 16 inches long to give that group of bass a chance to grow.  Spots became so common that they are no longer included in the slot and fishermen are encouraged to keep spots to eat. You are also encouraged to keep largemouth under the 13 inch limit to give more food for the bigger bass.

In the 2008 Bass Angler Information Team (BAIT) survey, Wedowee ranked first in angler success in club tournaments.  That means club anglers caught more bass per fisherman on Wedowee than any other lake in Alabama.  It ranked third in bass per angler day and a surprising fourth in the amount of time it took to catch a bass weighing over five pound.  So, you will catch a lot of bass and have an excellent chance at landing a five pound plus fish.

Due to all those factors, Wedowee was ranked as the best lake in Alabama for bass fishermen in 2008, and it seems to be getting better and better.  Plan a trip in May to take advantage of some excellent bass fishing.

Eric Morris loves bass fishing. Right now Eric is service manager of All Pro Auto Group in LaGrange. A few years ago he, his father and brother bought and now operate Wedowee Marina on Highway 431 right at the bridge on the Little Tallapoosa River.  They are taking on Legend Bass Boats this year and Eric is on the Legend Pro Staff. He is also sponsored by Falcon Rods.  He visits a wide variety of lakes and fishes more than 40 tournaments a year but Wedowee is his favorite lake.

Although he never fished a tournament until he was 25 years old, the first one his father took him to got him hooked to the point of addiction.  He loved it and now fishes tournaments every chance he gets. He has fished with a couple of bass clubs and now competes with the Harrelson Hawg Hunters bass club in Georgia, where he won the point standings two years. He also fishes every pot and charity tournament he can enter on Wedowee.

Eric has won four straight January club tournaments on the lake, but May is his favorite time to fish Wedowee.  He loves topwater fishing and it is excellent this month, and he catches some big fish on Spooks and Zell Pops all month long. And he can catch numbers of bass on a variety of baits.

We fished Wedowee on a rainy day the second week of April and some bass were already on the beds.  There should be a big wave of bass moving onto beds in late April around the full moon on the 28^th, and some will bed even after that. So, for the next few weeks, you can catch bedding bass, a few pre spawn fish, and a lot of hungry post spawn bass.

An 8.5 pound largemouth is Eric’s best from Wedowee, and he has landed a 4.45 pound spot there. His best tournament catch on Wedowee was five bass weighing 21.36 pounds and, surprisingly, included three largemouth and two spots.  And that weigh gave him third place in the tournament. It often takes well over 20 pounds to win on Wedowee.

Largemouth are Eric’s target in tournaments since they get bigger and weigh more, but he may fish all day for five or six bites to win.  For fun catching lots of bass, Eric will go after spots, especially when taking kids and inexperienced fishermen out.  He separates the methods and areas of the lake to catch each although you can catch some bass of each species on either pattern.

For largemouth, Eric says fish the upper stretches of either the Tallapoosa or Little Tallapoosa Rivers.  There is a higher percentage of largemouth to spots up the rivers so you are more likely to catch them.  And Eric uses baits that bigger largemouth eat, like a full size Spook.

In late April and early May Eric will fish back in the pockets, looking for fish around the bedding areas. Any small pocket is likely to hold bedding bass on Wedowee since there are not many creeks for them to go to.  Work every inch of the bank with your Foxy Shad or chrome and blue Spook or a ghost pattern Zell Pop with a feather trailer since there is a lot of underwater wood you can’t see that will hold fish. Make repeated casts to wood you can see.

As the water warms and it gets later in May, Eric will work more toward the outer banks of the pockets and the main points at their mouths. Post spawn bass will migrate out of the backs of the pockets and feed as they work their way out to the main channel.

Early mornings are best for topwater baits but Eric will fish them any time there is low light.  If the day is overcast he will throw a Spook or popper all day long. On sunny days, anytime there is a patch of shade on the water he will work it with the topwater baits, too.

A spinnerbait is another good bait for big largemouth, especially during the shad spawn. Watch for shad on the rocky banks early in the morning and throw a double willow leaf bladed white spinnerbait right on the bank. If there is no activity, slow roll it from the bank back to the boat. Eric says he will reel four or five turns of his reel handle then stop the bait and start it moving again with a twitch of the bait to give it more action.

If the bite is slow and the largemouth sluggish, Eric will pull out a green pumpkin Senko and work it weightless around all wood cover in the pockets.  A big Senko works best and he lets if fall slowly by any cover he spots.

Watch your line carefully for any twitches as a bass inhales the bait, and tighten up your line very slowly before moving it. If you feel weight, set the hook. Bass will often take the Senko and not move, and the first thing you feel when you move it is them spitting it out!

The main lake below the Highway 48 Bridge is the area to fish for spotted bass.  The water is clear, most banks are rocky and it is ideal spot habitat.  A wide variety of baits will catch fish down the lake.

First thing in the morning a small topwater bait like the Zell Pop will draw strikes when cast close to rocky bluff banks.  The strike will usually come within two feet of the rocks, so get in close and make parallel casts to the rocks, keeping your bait it the strike zone longer.

A jig head worm is Eric’s “go-to” bait and he uses it to catch, in his words, a “whole lotta numbers” of spots on the lower lake. He fishes a one-eight ounce jig head on eight pound fluorocarbon line and puts a green pumpkin or Bama Bug color Trick worm on it.  He says the lower lake is full of rocky points that hold large numbers of spots.

The best points are flat points at the end of a bluff wall, where the vertical rocks change to a flatter, gravel and rock area.  Eric will sit out in the channel with his boat in 20 feet of water, but near the end of the bluff, and cast up onto the flat point, working his bait from the shallows out and down the drop.

Cast your jig head right against the bank and make sure it goes to the bottom. Eric says too many fishermen keep their line tight and that makes the bait swing away from the edge of the rocks, and many start moving the worm before it hits bottom. Eric says he makes sure the jig is on the bottom then starts moving it “a half-inch” at a time, shaking his rod tip to make the tail of the worm dance.

Bass will often hit as the bait falls, so be ready as soon as your jig hits the water.  And move the bait slowly. Some of these points drop off steeply and if you pull your bait too far it will drop right past the fish holding on the bottom.

Jig head worms are great baits to let a kid use to learn to catch bass. They will get a lot of bites on this bait fished on this pattern so they don’t lose interest, and they will catch some hard pulling fish.

If the wind is strong, making it difficult to fish a light jig head worm, Eric will throw a Carolina rig in the same areas.  Fish the same worm or a green pumpkin lizard on a three-foot leader behind a heavy enough sinker to keep your bait near the bottom.   He fishes Carolina rigs on 12 pound Segar Fluorocarbon line, his choice of brand of line for all his fishing.

Also ride the points on the lower lake and watch your depthfinder for brush piles. Eric says every point on the lake seems to have a man made brush pile. Look for them where you would make one and there is probably one there.  Back off them and fish them with the jig head worm or a Carolina rigged worm.  Brush from 15 to 20 feet deep will hold bass best, in Eric’s opinion.

By the middle of May night tournaments start on Wedowee and night time is a great time to catch fish there. Eric fishes as many of the night tournaments as he can, and enjoys the change from daytime fishing.  He says by early June the lake will be on fire at night, with lots of bass feeding in the dark.

Dock lights attract bait and bass in the dark and Eric will fish any lights he can find with a small light colored crankbait. He tries to match the shad swimming around the lights and works the edges of the light first, then under them in the brighter light.

Spinnerbaits work well at night when fished on the down-lake points, too. Eric surprised me when he said he uses a white spinnerbait with silver blades in the dark. He does use a black or sapphire blue trailer on his white spinnerbait.  Make long casts across the points and reel the bait back steadily to give the bass an easier target in the dark.

You can catch bass at night on the points and brush piles, too. Fish them like you do during the day, but fish even slower.  When you hit brush or a rock, jiggle your bait in one place longer to let the bass find it in the dark.

Wedowee is a great lake for catching bass right now and will just bet better and better over the next several weeks.  Give Eric’s patterns a try and see how he catches them. These tactics will work for you.

Rainy day bass

North Georgia’s Top Bass Waters – How and Where To Catch North Georgia Bass

Ask a bass fisherman which month of the year is best and the response is likely to be “April.”  April is a dream month for bass fishing in the north half of our state.  The weather is comfortable and fairly stable for you and the bass are shallow, feeding and looking for bedding areas.

You have a wide variety of big lakes to fish north of Macon and you can catch largemouth and spotted bass in many of them.  No matter which lake you choose, from the South Carolina line to our border with Alabama, you can catch bass several different ways.  And you have a good shot at catching a wall hanger as well as filling up your livewell with keepers.

Pick any of the following lakes, give the suggested tactics a try and you will love April fishing even more.

Thurmond Lake

Called Clarks Hill by Georgia fishermen, Thurmond on the Savannah River is our biggest lake at 72,000 acres.  Georgia fishermen love it. The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Creel Census Report shows it as the most popular lake for Georgia bass club tournaments year after year.

Jon Hair grew up fishing Clarks Hill and landed a dream job as the office manager for Buckeye Lures.  He gets to fish Clarks Hill a lot and does well in tournaments there. Last April he and his partner won the Easter Seals tournament in April with a five bass limit weighing 20.10 pounds.

“You can catch bass pre-spawn, on the bed and post spawn during the month of April,” Jon said.  He concentrates his fishing on the Savanna River side of the lake due to current there when the Corps of Engineers is generating power and the water is usually clearer.

Early in the month Jon will throw a Carolina rigged green pumpkin Zoom lizard with a chartreuse tail on secondary points and gravel banks going into coves.  Bass are on them looking for bedding spots and will eat the lizard or a three-eights to one-half ounce brown Buckeye Mop Jig with a green pumpkin trailer. Both are dragged on the gravel bottoms and the jig can be hopped for added action.

When bass are on the bed Jon will sight fish for them and throw a Spot Remover jig head with a Zoom Trick worm into the beds. The Spot Remover head will make the worm stand up in the bed and drive the bass crazy.

Later in the month the blueback herring spawn on gravel beds on the main lake, mostly in “blow-throughs,” shallow areas between the bank and off shore islands and humps.   Early in the morning Jon will throw a JWill Swimbait Head with a Zoom Super Fluke, a topwater bait like a Sammy or a Gunfish and a weightless Fluke around those area.  As the sun gets high he will fish a little deeper with a Mop Jig, working the same areas.

Lake Lanier 

Lake Lanier is well known for its huge spotted bass.  Our second biggest lake at 40,000 acres located just outside Atlanta, it is a very heavily used lake by pleasure boaters and fishermen.  But the spots are there and you can catch them this month.  If you want a wall hanger spot Lanier is a good place to land it and April is a good month to get it.

Eric Aldrich lives near Lanier and fishes tournaments on it almost every week, as well as doing some guiding there.  He writes fishing reports for three local newspapers and is on the pro staff for Hummingbird, SPRO, Gamakatsu, and Tru Tungsten. He and his partner finished 4^th in the Boating Atlanta trail on Lanier last year.

A seven pound one ounce spotted bass is Eric’s personal record from Lanier and he has also landed a 10 pound largemouth on the lake.  His best five fish catch was five spots weighing just over 30 pounds.

“Big spots are in a pre-spawn pattern much of April, with a good many going on the bed during the month,” Eric said.  You can catch them on secondary points and in pockets with flats where they bed all during the month and the main lake and creeks below Brown’s Bridge are the best areas.

A couple of baits will cover what you need. Eric will keep a Spro McRip or McStick jerk bait rigged on one rod and a Spot Remover jig head with a Big Bait Finesse Worm on it on a second rod. His targeted depth is five to 20 feet, but he says you will catch a lot of big spots at the upper end of that range.

“Look for cover like rocks on points and docks back in pockets with flats,” Eric said.  Throw a jerk bait on the points and around the docks first for active fish. Try a variety of retrieves, from a steady jerking motion to a jerk, pause, jerk. Let the fish tell you what they want.

Then throw the jig head worm around the same areas for fish that don’t want to come up to hit the jerk bait.  Work it slowly on the bottom, giving the Spot Remover jig head time to sit and hold the worm up, its signature action.  Then hop it, let it fall back and sit again.  Big spots can’t stand that action.

Also, watch for beds and throw the jig head worm into them.  Remember that spots often bed in five to ten feet of water, so look deep.  Spots are usually aggressive on the beds and you can sight fish and land some big spots in April.

Lake Oconee

Lake Oconee is one of our newer lakes located on the Oconee River right in the middle of the north half of the state.  It is a popular lake with lots of big house and golf courses, but the fishing for largemouth is outstanding.  Georgia Power has a several good ramps on the lake and two campgrounds give fishermen a chance to stay on the lake and fish for several days.

Roger McKee has fished Oconee since 1985 and lived on the lake since 1995. He is on the lake almost every day checking out the bass and guiding other fishermen.  He fishes most tournaments on the lake and does well in them.

In April there is no better lake for largemouth fishing than Oconee in north Georgia. Bass are shallow for their spawn as well as taking advantage of the shad spawn.  Numerous sea walls and lots of riprap give the shad many places to lay their eggs. And numerous pockets and small creeks offer bass excellent bedding areas.

Roger likes to fish fast in April, looking for post spawn fish that were on the beds in late March, as well as pre spawn fish still looking for a bedding spot.  The stained water at Oconee makes sight fishing difficult so sight fishing for bass on the bed is hard to do, but it can produce some big fish.

“Tie on a bait that will cover water and get a reaction strike,” Roger said.  He will have a spinnerbait and a crankbait tied on two rods and those are his key baits.  Roger said he would depend on the crankbait when covering water and would throw it on points and banks going into spawning areas, fishing it fast so the bass don’t get a good look at it.

Bass fishing doesn’t get any better than when the shad spawn on Oconee. You can see the schools of shad running the seawalls and riprap banks early in the morning in April, especially the last half the month.

Tie on a double willow leaf three eights ounce spinnerbait with silver blades and a white skirt and throw it right against the seawalls and on the riprap rocks on the main lake.  You can’t cast too shallow so get your bait against the wall or right on the rocks out of the water. Expect a strike as soon as the bait hits the water, but fish it back to five feet deep or so before reeling in to make another cast.

You can contact Roger for a guide trip through his website at http://lakeoconeesinclairguideservices.com/.

Carters Lake

If you want a record spot, a trip to Carters Lake might produce it.  Carters Lake is a Corps of Engineers lake in northwest Georgia east of Dalton and I-75. At 3220 acres, Carter’s is a fairly small lake.  There is no shoreline development other than a few boat ramps and a marina, so fishing Carter’s gives you a natural setting.

Louie Bartenfield grew up around Carter’s Lake and he and his father fished it often, with good success. His father has landed three largemouth weighing over 10 pounds at Carter’s, and Louie learned from him. They fished tournaments together for a year or so then Louie teamed up with family friend Tony Hill.

Now Louie concentrated mainly on the big spots in Carters that have come on strong over the past few years. He is a well known guide and tournament fisherman on Carters and he catches some huge spots there every year.

Since spots on Carters spawn late in April or in May, Louie will be looking for fish on a main lake pattern. There is also a good creek pattern that develops as the fish move into the creeks and both patterns work most of April.

“An easy pattern on Carters in April is to fish the alewife spawn,” Louie said.  Many people don’t realize there is big population of alewife in the lake. Unlike blueback herring, which are also in the lake, alewife spawn during the night. As the sun comes up they pull out off the main lake spawning area and suspend 10 to 12 feet down.  Louie says you can see huge schools of them on your depthfinder.

To catch the big spots feeding on them Louie will tie on a big War Eagle three-quarters ounce white spinnerbait with two silver willowleaf blades.  He will get way off main lake points and humps and make as long a cast as he can toward the bank. Slow roll the spinnerbait back to the boat in a steady retrieve, making it run down 12 to 14 feet deep where the big spots are holding under the alewife.

This pattern is best in the mornings and some wind helps.  Wind breaks up the water surface and makes it harder for the bass to see the bait, and they are more likely to hit it in the very clear water.  Louie will fish this pattern all morning, or until the bite fades.

“Everyone loves catching bass on top, and in the middle of the day there is a fun pattern that anybody can enjoy,” Louie said. He will go into the creeks on the lake and throw a small topwater bait like a Pop-R under overhanging brush and trees, working any shade he can find. The sun concentrates bass in the shade and they will hit the topwater bait all day long.

To contact Louie check out his website at http://carterslakeguideservice.com/. There are pictures there of some of the huge spots he catches as well as videos of some April fishing trips.

West Point Lake

West Point Lake on the Georgia Alabama line is a great lake for both spotted bass and largemouth.       A Corp of Engineers Lake with 25,900 acres of water and 525 miles of shoreline, fishing opportunities are varied and you can find any kind of cover and structure you desire.   A huge range of methods work during April, from sight fishing for bedding bass to working the shad spawn.

Last April in a club tournament I started on a gravel point near the dam back in a big creek and hooked seven bass on the first casts seven casts I made. I landed five of those bass and had a limit in the livewell in 12 minutes.  All hit a Sammy worked across a couple of feet of water.  Although I culled four of those first five bass, that fast action was fun.

Early in the morning bass are looking for shad spawning during April, especially later in the month. Find any hard bottom like gravel points and riprap and  you will find bass.  Throw a spinnerbait or topwater bait near the hard bottom and you will catch bass.

As the sun gets high later in the month, or early in the month before the shad spawn, throw a jig head worm on points leading into small spawning pockets or on secondary points back in the bigger pockets.  Work any cover you can find from wood to rocks in two to ten feet of water, bumping the worm through the cover.  That is how I culled four fish in the tournament last April.

I like the lower lake, from Wehadkee Creek to the dam, including the big creeks like Wehadkee, since the water is usually more stable and clearer.

Try these lakes this month. You can’t go wrong anywhere you go in April, but these tips should help you get on the fish quickly and catch a lot of bass.

I caught this bass in a club tournament in January at Jackson Lake a few years ago

How and Where To Catch Big Bass In Georgia

Catching your limit when bass fishing is always fun.  But there is something very special about catching a big bass.  Landing a five pound plus largemouth or spotted bass will bring a smile to any fisherman’s face. Putting a true trophy in the boat, a spot over six pounds or a largemouth over eight pounds, is something to brag about for years.

Where you fish can make or break you when trying to land a bragging size bass. Some waters produce trophies on a regular basis, others not so much.  We are lucky here in Georgia to have choices where big bass are not rare. After all, our waters produced the world record bass!

When trying to decide where to go hunt your trophy there are several things to consider. An important one is access. It does not matter how big bass get in private ponds if you can’t fish them.  And some public waters have so many restrictions on boats and times you can fish that they are not good choices.

Our big lakes offer a wide variety of choices for a big bass.  But how to determine which ones are best? The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Creel Census Report compiles data from about 100 bass clubs each year.  The clubs submit information from each tournament and most have 12 per year, so there is a lot of water covered. And one of the data points recorded is bass over five pounds caught.

By keeping up with the number of five pound plus bass landed and the hours fished in the tournament by the number of fishermen, a category “hours to catch a five pound bass” is produced for each lake.  That can be a good guide to show you where your have your best chances of landing a big bass.

The following lakes will all give you a good shot at a bass over five pounds.  Right now is a fun time to be after them with good weather and stable conditions. Make your choice, head to the lake and hook a wall hanger.

Seminole

Lake Seminole is hands down the best big lake in Georgia to land a five pounder.  In club tournaments it took only 85 man hours to weigh in a five pound plus fish.  That may seem like a lot, but in an average club tournament lasting eight hours with at least 11 fishermen there was probably a five pounder brought to the scales.

Seminole is about as far south as you can fish in Georgia.  Located right in the corner of Georgia, Florida and Alabama where the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers join to form the Apalachicola River, its waters are filled with a wide variety of kinds of water plants.  Bass love things like water hyacinths, hydrilla and lily pads and they are everywhere.

All the plant life is the bottom of the food chain that produces all kinds of goodies bass love to eat and grow fat.  From eels to shad, just about any kind of baitfish and other food for bass is plentiful for them.  And they have lots of shallow cover so you don’t have to go dredge the depths for them.

The big water in the lower rivers and near the dam is full of shallow flats, ridges, humps and channels and they are covered with stumps, standing timber and a variety of grass.  By now most bass are done spawning and have moved toward the old river channels so that is the area you want to fish.

Find a ditch or channel coming out of a shallow spawning area and follow it to the main channel. Look for flats covered with grass on both sides of it.  Bass will hold and feed on the edge of the grass, right on a drop.  They use grass edges for cover to ambush passing food.

Work a big bait for a big bass. On cloudy or windy days a big spinnerbait slow rolled right along the edge of the grass will produce strikes.  A big vibrating bait like a one-ounce Rat-L-Trap can also be run along these edges. When it hangs on grass rip it free. That sudden surge will often draw a reaction strike.

A huge plastic worm will eliminate some smaller bass but will attract the hawgs you want.  The Zoom Old Monster 10.5 inch worm and the Big Bite 10 inch Kriet Tail worm are good choices and a big worm will get big bites.  Rig it on a big 5/0 hook with a light sinker to work along and through the grass line and fish it slowly.  A big bass usually does not like to go far or fast for its meal.

Lake Walter F. George

Just up the Chattahoochee River Walter F. George, called Eufaula by most, also produces good catches of big largemouth.  It took 156 man hours to land a five pound plus fish in club tournaments, a lot higher than Seminole but still second best in the state.

Eufaula is on the Georgia Alabama line just south of Columbus and is known for its river and creek ledge fishing.  Its shallows are full of grass and stumps where largemouth grow fat in the spring and the water is fertile enough to produce lots of schools of big shad.

Big largemouth stack up on deep drops out in open water by this time of year and you can sometimes find a school and land several big bass from one spot.  Cowikee Creek and the lake downstream of it contain lots of good channel ledges.  It may seem strange to be sitting so far from the bank you could not hit it with a                  30-06, but the bass are there.

You want to look for a sharp bend in the creek or river channel and a ditch or cut in the ledge formed by it helps.  Cover like stumps, brush or rocks also are important to holding bass on the ledges, and you need some kind of hard bottom.

Current is critical on these ledges. Fish during the week when power is being generated at the dam, pulling water and bait across the drops.  It is an amazing difference in the bite when the water is moving.

A big crankbait like a Mann’s 20 plus, Fat Free Shad or Norman’s DD22N are good baits to fish on the ledges. Right now look for ledges that top out 12 to 16 feet down.  Position your boat downstream and down current of the ledge and make long cast upstream across them.  You want your bait to bump the bottom along the ledge to draw a strike.

If you don’t want to throw a big crankbait all day, or can’t hold up to throw one that long, try a Carolina or Texas rigged worm dragged across the same ledges. Go with big worms like the Old Monster and use sinkers heavy enough to keep it on the bottom in the current. Drag the Carolina rig across the ledge and stop it when you hit cover. Hop the Texas rig and let it rise and fall, but stop it too when you hit cover.

Jackson Lake

Back in the 1970s and 80s Jackson Lake produced more big bass than just about any other lake in the state.  I landed my first two eight pound plus largemouth at Jackson in club tournaments in the 70s and my best ever, a nine pound, seven ounce fish, hit in a club tournament in 1991.  Although smaller spots have hurt the lake the past 20 years, you can still land a big largemouth there. Two years ago I landed an eight pound, thirteen ounce largemouth there in a club tournament.

Jackson was a very fertile lake years ago with sewage from Atlanta fertilizing its waters.  The water is much cleaner now but that means it is less fertile and bass grow slower.  You might have to work harder for a five pounder now, but you will catch some.

Jackson is almost in the middle of the state about 15 miles east of I-75 and south of I-20.  It is formed by a dam just downstream of where the Ocmulgee River starts. The waters of that river produced the world record bass so you know it has potential.

Bass have been feeding on the shad spawn for several weeks in April and are fat and happy now.  They are still holding near the main lake seawalls and riprap where the shad spawn and will look for late spawning shad still. But they will quickly back off as the sun comes up and you will need to fish a little deeper during the day.

Start early in the morning with a big topwater bait like a Zara Spook and work it along the  main lake points with seawalls and riprap.  Cast right on the bank and work it all the way back to the boat with as steady, slow walk the dog action.  Be ready for a hit any time.

As the sun gets higher, try a Zoom Trick worm or Fluke fished weightless in these same areas. Start with the bait just under the surface but let it go deeper and deeper as the sky gets brighter.  Work both baits slowly, offering an easy meal to a fat hawg.

Bumping the bottom with a jig and pig will work well on these points, too.  Use a black and blue jig and pig in stained water or a brown one in clear water and slowly hop it down the sloping bottom, working from a couple of feet deep down to 15 feet. Slow down and fish it carefully if you hit wood or rock cover.

Lake Burton

For a big spotted bass, go where the state record eight pound two ounce bass was landed.  Lake Burton has been producing big spots since blueback herring were introduced into the lake and five pounders are fairly common.  The eight pounder shows what is possible.

Lake Burton is a Georgia Power lake on the Tallulah River west of Clayton. It is an old lake and has steep rocky shorelines with lots of wood cover like dock posts and blowdown trees. Seawalls and riprap line the banks with the rocks, too, and the water is very clear

The blueback herring spawn in early May in Burton and that is a key to catching a monster spotted bass.  The big spots will be holding right on seawalls on the main lake, watching for the herring first thing in the mornings.  Cast a white spinnerbait against the rocks and seawalls and slow roll it back out. It usually won’t go far!

As the sun get higher the bass will back off but will still hit the spinnerbait. Also try a topwater plug like a Spook worked from the bank out over deeper water.  Follow up with a Fluke.  Get your boat in fairly close and make angled casts since the bottom drops fast.  Work the Spook and Fluke fast, drawing the bass up to hit them.

Also try swimming a Buckhead Pulse Jig with a Zoom Fluke on it just off the bottom. If the big spots won’t come up they will often eat a more subtle bait like the Pulse Jig.  Use a natural colored Fluke behind the head.

Blowdowns hold big largemouth and spots on Burton, so after the sun gets high work trees in the water with a jig and pig.  Find the nearest blowdown to the areas where the herring spawn and work a brown and green jig and pig through them, bouncing from limb to limb, from the bank all the way out to the tip of the tree.

In the clear water, use fluorocarbon line and make long casts. Also, be aware of the sun position and make your casts to cover the shady side of the tree trunk and limbs in the water. Use as light a jig and pig as you can work depending on wind and depth water.

Lake Lanier

Lake Lanier may produce more quality spotted bass than any other lake anywhere.  With the introduction of blueback herring and the 14 inch size limit on all bass, Lanier has become a well known trophy spot lake.  Five fish limits of spots weighing over 20 pounds are common in tournaments and seven pound spots are weighed in each year. Several people say they have hooked a new world record spot but only time, and landing the fish, will prove if a record spot is on Lanier.

Located just northeast of Atlanta on the Chattahoochee River, Lanier is a big Corps of Engineers lake with good access but heavy usage. It is difficult to impossible to fish the lake on warm weekend days but week days are often uncrowded this time of year.  If you fish the weekend, try to be on the water at first light and fish as long as the waves will allow.

Laura Gober lives near Lanier and fishes it often with husband Trent. They fish a good many tournaments there and do well.  Laura fished the Woman’s Bass Tour and did well in it during its run, too.  She won one tournament and had 11 top 20 finishes on that trail.  Lanier is her home lake and she loves to catch big spots there.

By late spring the bass are mostly done spawning and are moving deep on main lake humps and points. Big spots will come up to hit topwater baits like the Chug Bug, Laura’s favorite, and jerkbaits like the Staysee 90, especially early in the morning. Laura will fish both these baits over humps and points.

If your boat is in 35 feet of water and you are casting over 15 feet you are about right this time of year, according to Laura.  She will work the faster moving baits as long as the bass will hit, but she then slows down and fishes a Texas rigged Senko through cover on the bottom in the same places.

Rig a green pumpkin Senko behind a one-quarter to three-eights ounce sinker and dip the tail in chartreuse JJ’s Magic to give it scent and flash.  Work it slowly through rocks and stumps in 17 to 30 feet of water.  Laura says she catches bigger spots by fishing deeper than most anglers do on Lanier, so back off some and fish deep for a wallhanger.

No mater which lake you choose, use quality line and equipment when fishing for big bass.  On big public lakes the fish are getting more and more wary so fluorocarbon line is a good choice.  Use as light line as you can depending on water clarity. Pick a reel that has smooth drag and set it so your trophy pulls drag and does not pop your line.

All of the above lakes will give you a shot at a bragging size bass this month. Decide if you want a largemouth or spot and fish the lake that offers the best of that species.  Fish long and hard to increase your odds and you will get that big one.

Pickwick bass caught on a crank bait in May

May Means Crankbaits On The Tennessee River Chain

By Abe Smith

from The Fishing Wire

Basketball fans have their “March Madness,” but there’s madness in May, too, on the storied reservoirs of the Tennessee River. It’s time for Crankbait Madness.

“By mid-May, bass are done spawning and they come out from the shallows and gang up on offshore structure to recuperate,” notes Jimmy Mason, Bassmaster pro who also guides throughout the Tennessee River system. “And a crankbait is a dynamite tool to locate and catch them. Get a school fired up, and you can catch them cast after cast!”

Timmy Horton used the Tennessee River waters of Guntersville, Wheeler, Wilson, Chickamauga and Pickwick as springboards to his Bassmaster Elite Series career.

“In May bass start schooling in the creeks,” echoes Horton. “I like to find them with a crankbait as they start coming out toward the main lake.”

Though largemouth bass predominate on the river system, the Tennessee River impoundments along the Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama borders also produce some of the largest smallmouth bass found anywhere. Pickwick is the most well known and Horton cut his teeth there. He said that at times both species can be caught from the same areas.

“They will be together at times, ” says Horton, “but in May the smallmouth will already be on main lake current breaks. They spawn on main river bars and are already set up on main lake current breaks while largemouth are still migrating out from their protected spawning bays. It’s late May or early June before they get back together on the Tennessee River.”

The key to May crankin’ is to track post-spawn bass on their reverse migration from spawning areas to the main river channel, the primary summer sanctuary on all the Tennessee River impoundments. Mason and Horton intercept retreating bass on cover and primary structural elements like points and humps along that migration route.

Mason draws a map line between spawning areas and the river channel and looks for holding structure along the way. Holding areas off the shallows are generally within eight to 12 foot depths, but he is also looking for structure in the 15- to 18-foot range.

The wild card in this Tennessee River chain poker game is the shad spawn.

“Post-spawn bass fishing is all about the shad,” says Horton.

He looks for areas with rough, rocky or shell bottoms. Shad eat algae off the rocks and shells, and spawn on shallow bars nearby. Most of the shad spawning activity occurs at night or during the wee hours of the morning.

“This is the time of year when you want to be out at daybreak,” Mason said. “When your baits are bringing clouds of shad in with them, you know you are going to get slammed!”

Horton comes to the shad feast with the Bomber Switchback Shad #6 or Fat Free Shad BD6 and moves to the bigger, deeper-running #7 Switchback or BD7F Fat Free Shad as the fish move deeper and more to the main lake. The Square Lip Fat Free Shads come into play if there’s wood cover involved. During the prime early morning hours when he’s covering a lot of water and catching active fish he throws a lipless crankbait.

“In May on Guntersville and Chickamauga the fish are moving throughout the day. You’ll find them shallow early, but once the sun comes up they’ll settle deeper. They’re just following the shad. I throw an Xr50 to locate the fish,” Horton said.

Squarebill crankbaits also factor into Mason’s arsenal.

“Immediately after the bass spawn, you have the shad spawn period, and bass gorge themselves on the spawning shad,” says Mason. “On Guntersville, they key on the grass edges. On Pickwick, they are on grass edges and gravel bars. During that period I throw a squarebill crankbait a lot. I use the XCalibur XCS 100 and XCS 200, and if they’re deeper I go to the square bill Fat Free Shads.”

His color selection is a shad palette of Foxy Shad, Foxy Lady, More Chartreuse, Blueback Chartreuse, Dance Citrus Shad and Dance Tennessee Shad.

“Those colors cover 95 percent of my cranking in May,” says Mason.

I saw this bass holding under a dock and caught it on a Trick

Tell a bass fisherman spotted bass are not native to Georgia and he will look at you like you are crazy. After all, every big lake in the state has spots in them, and in many of our lakes they outnumber largemouth by a wide margin.

Add that spots are bad for the largemouth population in most lakes and you really will get that “You are crazy” look, and will get many arguments. Unfortunately, the arguments are “fisherman” knowledge and are not based on biology or science. The misunderstanding about how spots affect a lake is one reason they are so widespread.

Spotted bass are native to the Mississippi River drainage, including the Tennessee River that has some tributaries that barely touch Georgia, but Georgia waters are not in their native range. Spots were stocked into every lake in Georgia, mostly by fishermen that liked to catch them. They do have some good qualities but also change the dynamics of a lake and affect the largemouth population in negative ways.

WRD Senior Fisheries Biologist Anthony Rabern is responsible for northeast Georgia lakes has some interesting information about spotted bass. For one thing, spots don’t really move from one lake to the next one downstream naturally. It is possible for them to get through a dam and move downstream, but unlikely. So the spots downstream of Lanier in West Point, Bartletts Ferry and others probably did not get there through natural means.

Spots are more aggressive than largemouth, one of their endearing qualities to fishermen. But that also means they out compete largemouth for food, so a few spots can turn into the predominate species in a lake fairly quickly. Spots are fun to catch and pull hard, but they don’t grow as fast as largemouth and don’t reach the same sizes as largemouth.

Lakes can support a certain biomass per acre of bass. Since spots don’t grow as fast or as big as largemouth but are more aggressive, that lowers the average size of the bass in the biomass. Spots compete with largemouth for the available food, and usually out compete the largemouth.

For a theoretical example, if a lake can support 100 pounds of bass per acre, it does not matter if it is 100 pounds of spots or 100 pounds of largemouth, or a mixture of the two. So with largemouth, you would expect to find a variety of smaller fish in the one pound range, a good many in the two to three pound range, and some above five pounds. But with spots you would tend to have 100 one-pound fish.

Spots also act differently. They roam the lake more and chase baitfish. Rabern says when they tag a largemouth bass and release it at Point “A” in the lake it will usually stay near that point the rest of its life. But a spot may be tagged and released up a river and show up near the dam a few days later, even in big lakes.

This roaming and following baitfish is the reason blueback herring really help the spotted bass population in a lake. Bluebacks cause a lot of problems when established in a lake, but under the right conditions they become the favorite food of spots and make them grow bigger and fatter. Lake Lanier is a good example of that interaction, but it does not happen on all lakes.

Two north Georgia lakes offer opposite extremes. At Lake Chatuge there are large numbers of spots but most are 10 inches long or less. Those ten inchers still fill the biomass and reduce the number of largemouth in the lake. Lake Burton has a lot of big spots, and the state record 8 pound, 2 ounce spot came from it. Two similar lakes with very different results from the introduction of spots.

Many lakes in Georgia have gone from no spots to two-thirds spots and one third largemouth in just a few years. Where fishermen used to catch a variety of sizes of largemouth they now catch a bunch of small spots. It is fun to catch a lot of bass, but you give up catching quality fish in most cases when spots take over.

Each club in the Georgia Bass Chapter Federation sends Creel Census reports to Dr. Carl Quertermus at University of West Georgia each year, reporting on each club’s tournament catches. One of the questions is the percentage of bass that are largemouth, and that data shows the trend when spots get into a lake.

Lanier has long had a good spot population but in 1994 27.49 percent of club tournament catches were largemouth. By 2010 that was down to only 10 percent. Allatoona is also known for having spots for many years. In 1994 26.71 percent of bass were largemouth, by 2010 it was 9.8 percent. The largest average bass at Allatoona in 1994 was 3.27 pounds, by 2010 it was down to 2.81 pounds. At Lanier the average size of the largest bass actually went up from 3.49 pounds in 1994 to 3.75 pounds in 2010.

West Point did not have a large population of spots in its early years but they are much more common now. In 1994 90.17 percent of bass in club tournaments were largemouth, but the 16 inch size limit on largemouth may have impacted that number of spots weighed in. By 2010 only 34.3 percent of the catch was largemouth and the average largest bass went from 4.56 pounds to 4.27 pounds.

The following lakes give you a good chance to catch spots, some of decent size, this spring.

Lake Lanier

Spots have been in Lanier almost since it was dammed. Back in the 1970s you could catch them but most were small. After bluebacks were introduced to the lake the spots grew in weight and now you can catch big spots there. Unfortunately, not all lakes respond to this combination like Lanier.

Three pound spots are common on Lanier and five pounders are weighed in at most tournaments. Seven pounders are caught every year and some fishermen say they have had on eight pound plus spots. You have a change of breaking the state record for spots on Lanier in May.

Spots are aggressive when on the bed, and in late April and early May some are still bedding since spots tend to bed later than largemouth. If you find one on the bed you are likely going to be able to get it to hit on just a few casts. So looking for bedding bass is a good tactic. Drop a small jig and pig or Texas rigged worm in the bed and the spot will eat it.

Herring spawn in May on open water cover like shallow gravel bars, and the “blowthrough” fishing for spots on the herring spawn is fantastic. Go out to just about any island or long point on the lower lake below Browns Bridge and throw a big topwater bait like a Zara Spook or Sammy at first light and you will catch some big spots.

A spinnerbait, soft or hard jerk bait or swimbait also works well in the same places. You are looking for a gravel bottom in six feet of water or less and should work your bait from very shallow out to 15 feet deep. Spots will come up from cover to smash the bait even after the early morning feed when they are roaming the gravel looking for herring.

After the sun gets up the spots will hold on deeper cover like brush piles and standing timber but will still come up to hit baits fished over them, especially if wind puts some chop on the water. You can also fish the cover with a jig head worm, drop shot rig or small jig and pig to catch them where they are holding. Look for cover in 25 to 30 feet of water, especially toward the end of the month, and work your bait through it.

Lake Burton

Lake Burton is another success story where blueback herring and spots have produced a good fishery. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Davison says it is a quality spotted bass fishery. An adequate food supply, mainly blueback herring, coupled with a spot population that tends to have fish that live longer, make big spots common.

The state record spot came from Burton and the WRD says it has the potential to produce a new world record spot, weighing more then the current 10 pound, 4 ounce fish. There are above average numbers of spots over 12 inches long and above average trophy fish, so if you want a wall hanger spot Burton would be a good choice.

The same patterns for the blueback spawn that work at Lanier will work at Burton. Another pattern that works well on Burton is to fish a Super Fluke and Texas rigged worms around boat docks and blowdowns in deep water. The lower lake is the best area to catch big spots.

West Point Lake

The population of spots at West Point has exploded in the past 15 years and there are some big spots in the lake. Bluebacks have been showing up there, too, but the population is not dense enough yet to really offer a good spawn fishery. Spots tend to rely on shad on West Point and the shad spawn is pretty much over by May each year, but you can still catch some on the places the shad spawned.

Fish a gravel point below the Highway 109 Bridge before the sun comes up and you should have good action. A Spook or Sammy work well, but since the spots tent to be smaller also throw a smaller bait, like a Pop-R, on those points. They can get the smaller bait in their mouths easier and you will hook more of the fish that hit.

After the sun gets up throw a Finesse worm on a jig head on those same gravel points, fishing from right on the bank out to 15 feet deep. Drag it along and then hop it every foot or so to draw their attention. A little chartreuse on the tail of the worm really attracts spots, so dip your favorite color in JJs Magic.

Fish the same bait or a small jig and pig on rocky points on the lower lake for spots, too. If the water is clear, browns and green pumpkin work well, but if it is stained try black and blue. Keep in contact with the bottom but hop the jig and pig along, imitating a fleeing crayfish. Spots love crayfish.

The bridge riprap and pilings on the railroad causeway, Highway 109 and in Wehadkee Creek are also good. A light one-eight ounce jig with a small chunk works well on the riprap and the light weight will keep you from getting hung in the rocks too much. Try a small crankbait on the rocks and around the pilings, too. Shad or crawfish colors work well.

Jackson Lake

The transition to spotted bass on Jackson Lake is the one with which I am most familiar. The two bass clubs I am in each fish it three times a year, and I have been fishing it since 1974. My first two eight pound bass came from there in club tournaments in the 1970s, and my best ever, a nine pound, seven ounce fish came in a club tournament there in 1992.

We have had some memorable catches. The day I caught my second eight pounder there were two other eight pounders weighing a little more weighed in. I netted a nine pound, two ounce bass for my partner in one tournament where there was another nine pounder, an eight and a seven the same day. We seldom fished Jackson without a seven pound plus fish being weighed in, but there has been only one weighing over seven pounds in the past 10 years.

In 1992 at a weigh-in someone said “That looks like a spot,” and it was, the first we ever weighed in. Now at least three fourths of the bass we catch are spots and we have had many tournaments where not a single largemouth was brought to the scales. In the Creel Census Report, in 1994 99.52 percent of bass were largemouth. The percent largemouth was in the upper 30s to low 40s the first nine years this century, but for some reason in 2010 largemoouth were 52.1 percent.

There are some big spots in Jackson and we usually have some over three pounds, with an occasional four pounder. The best bet this time of year it so throw a topwater popper around rocky points on the main lake early in the morning. If you can find a May Fly hatch it really makes it better.

After the sun gets up back off and throw a jig head worm on the rocky points. Use a five inch worm in green pumpkin and dip the tail in dye to make it more attractive to spots. Work it from right on the bank to 15 feet deep. Rocks are the key to catching spots on Jackson.

Lake Russell

Lake Russell is full of spots and some of them are big. Club fishermen transported spots from Lanier to Russell as soon as it was built and they have taken over. In 1994 99.83 percent of bass in club tournaments were largemouth. By 2010 that was down to just 42.3 percent largemouth.

The simplest pattern for finding spots on Russell is to run the poles marking the channels and fish around each one. The poles mark the ends of points in most cases and many have rocks around them. Fishermen have put out brush around most of them, too.

Fish a Spook over the points around the poles in the morning then fish them with a small jig and pig or jig head worm. Probe for the rocks and brush and jiggle your bait when you hit cover. Make it quiver in one place as long as you can. Doodling was invented for spots and it works wherever they live.

Also try the riprap. Shad spawn on it so a spinnerbait or topwater works well around the rocks on the many bridges in Russell. Soft jerkbaits like Flukes are good, too. Fish them as an angle to the rocks, keeping your boat in fairly close. Cast right on the bank and work the Fuke back to the boat parallel to the rocks.

These patterns and techniques will work on most any lake with spots, and that means most of our lakes. Give them a try. Rocks are always the key, and clear water is usually best for spotted bass, so stick with clear water lakes.

Spots are here to stay, no matter if they are good or bad for a lake. There is no size limit on spots on any lake except Lanier, so if you want some fish to eat take home a limit of small spots. They taste good and removing them won’t hurt the lake. In fact, it may help.

Murray’s Pre-Spawn Bass Fishing

This big lake on the Saluda River offers a lot of water to cover to find bass. Here are some tips that will help you find the bass this month.

March is a great month to be a bass fisherman. Warming waters and longer days kick in the spawning urge and bass move shallow and feed, getting ready to bed. Some early spawners even start bedding. That means bass are hungry and easy to catch. Lake Murray is one of the best bets in the state to find those hungry bass.

Murray is a 50,000 acre South Carolina Electric and Gas Company lake on the Saluda River. It has about 500 miles of shoreline and runs 41 miles east to west from the dam up the river. When the dam was completed in 1930 is was the biggest earth and rock dam in the world and it backed up the largest reservoir in the world at that time.

Until a few years ago Murray was full of grass like elodea and hydrilla. That submerged grass made the bass populations expand and the fish grow bigger. Big tournaments were attracted to Murray and fishermen brought in huge stringers of bass. It was called a world class fishery by visiting professional fishermen.

Since the grass interfered with pleasure boating huge numbers of grass carp were released in the lake, and they did their job only too well, cleaning out almost all underwater vegetation. Due to the loss of the grass the bass populations have started to suffer. They got a little help when the lake levels went up and down a good bit starting three years ago. That allowed some grass to grow on exposed ground and it was flooded when the lake came back up.

The good news is there are plenty of quality fish in Murray and March is a great month to catch them. But you will have better luck if you concentrate on certain areas of the lake and use some proven techniques. To help you get started three fishermen that know Murray well and fish it often agreed to share their March tactics.

Captain Rob Thames got started bass fishing as a child and got into tournament fishing in 1974 when he and his father joined the Lake Murray Bassmasters club. He and his father also helped found the Mid-Carolina Bassmasters. He is now a full time Coast Guard licensed bass guide and is on the water most days, studying the habits and movements of Lake Murray bass.

“Bass are staging for the spawn in March, moving up into the bedding areas,” Thames said. He added that some will be spawning by late March in years when the weather is warm. These shallow fish can be caught in a variety of ways.

The northern creeks on Murray always warm up first and are the best bet for shallow bass in March. Since the lake runs east and west, wind is often a problem. But if you put in at the dam at the power company public ramp on the north side of the dam or at Dreher Island State Park you can stay on the north side of the lake and be protected by the long points. Thames says the best fishing is from the dam to the state park in March. The bass move up earlier on the north side since the sun warms it more so that is the area you want to fish.

Cover is crucial in March and there is little left since the grass is gone. You should look for boat docks, boat ramps, brush piles and rocks this time of year. The bass will hold on any cover and feed until the water temperature gets right for them to bed. They will be feeding on shad, bream and crayfish in the shallow water.

Have a crankbait in a shad pattern rigged. Thames likes Bandit, Lucky Craft and Strike King baits and they all work well. He will fish them around dock posts, ramps and even brush piles. He says don’t be afraid to put your crankbait right in the middle of a brush pile to get a bite. You may get hung up but you may hang a bass, too.

Dock posts are excellent cover this time of year and Thames will make his casts so his crankbait deflects off them on the retrieve. He follows up the crankbait with a jig and pig, pitching it around the dock posts, too. Let it fall and hit bottom then shake it and hop it a couple of times before reeling in for another cast.

An Omega Jig in browns and greens, with a Zoom Super Chunk in brown or green pumpkin is his choice for this kind of fishing. It also works well when hopped down a ramp or worked through a brush pile. Fish it slowly in brush, jiggling it as it comes up a limb and falls off. Give the bass plenty of time to hit it.

Both those baits also work on rocks. Look for rocks on points and off the bank in three to five feet of water, and around boat ramps. Rocks and boat ramps are especially good when the sun is warming them in March. Work the rocks and boat ramps from different angles with both baits.

For a backup plan, especially if a cold front comes through or if the weather stays cooler than normal, look for deeper brush piles. You can often find them out from docks or along the channels going into coves. Also check out on points at the mouths of spawning areas. Look for brush in five to 12 feet of water for bass holding and waiting on better conditions.

Fish the brush piles with either your jig and pig or soak a Senko in them. Sometimes a Senko type stick bait is best since it falls slower and gives the bass more time to decide to eat it. Fish both baits very slowly and work the brush you find carefully.

Norm Attaway has been a professional bass fisherman for over ten years and was the BFL Angler of the Year in the Carolina Division in 2001. Last year he fished the BASS Tundra Series and finished in the top ten in all but the last two tournaments. He guides on Murray when he is not fishing tournaments and did an Orlando Wilson TV Fishing Show at Murray. He knows the lake well and has watched the changes it has gone through the past few years.

“Late February though March is my favorite time on Murray,” Attaway said. The bass are moving onto the flats getting ready to spawn and some big females are bedding in March if the water is warm. They will be holding on cover and feeding this time of year.

Attaway likes boat dock posts and broom straw out on the flats for fishing in March. The broom straw grass grew up when the lake was low then got flooded when the water came up. It holds bass this time of year, especially out in the middle of flats in five or six feet of water. He also looks for docks near the flats in the same depths.

The best areas of the lake in March are on the north side since they are protected from strong winds and the sun warms them faster than on the south side. Although a cold front will push them out of the shallows they won’t go far and you can find them and follow them back in as the water starts to warm again.

You can often see fish in the shallows, according to Attaway, and that tells you where to fish. The clear water allows you to spot bass up shallow either looking for a bedding spot or already on the bed.

Attaway will fish for them with a brown hand-tied Ernest Langley jig with a green pumpkin chunk trailer. Fish the jig around the dead grass and let the fish tell you how they want it fished. Try swimming it through the grass and also letting it hit bottom and make short hops with it. Sometimes bass favor a moving bait and other times they want it on the bottom, so try both. When you catch a bass, keep doing what you were doing when it hit.

Also pitch your jig to boat dock post and work it around them. Try both retrieves there, too. And if they want even a slower moving bait, try a stick bait like a Senko. It falls slower and you can fish it even slower then a jig and pig.

If a cold front comes through back out to a little deeper water and look for rocks at the mouths of the spawning flats. Fish your jig around the rocks to get strikes from bass that have moved out to wait on warmer water. You can also catch bass on rocks like this if March is unusually cold and they are slower moving in. They will be holding on rocks until the water warms.

Boat ramps offer a good spot for bass to hold and the sun warms them, making them even better. Attaway says you can get on a good pattern some days just fishing boat ramps. Work the jig along both sides, down the middle and make several casts so you cover the end of the ramp where it drops off.

As a back-up Attaway will always throw a Basstrix four or six-inch swim bait over the grass. He says sometimes the catch can be incredible for quality bass on a swimbait but this bite is inconsistent. You may load the boat one day and not get a bite the next day. But try it, and if you catch a bass keep throwing it. It can pay off big.

Fluorocarbon line in 20 pound test is Attaway’s choice for his jig and swimbait. He drops back to 12 pound line for stick bait fishing since it is a more subtle presentation. He wants the heavy line on jigs and swimbaits to make sure he lands anything that hits and the fish don’t mind the heavier line. On stick baits the lighter line gets more bites.

Attaway usually puts in at the Larry Koon Boat Landing, also called Shull Island ramp. It is convenient for him from his house and gives him a central location on the lake. If you use it you will have to run across to the north side of the lake to fish, but if you are coming in from the south that may be much shorter then driving around the lake.

Paul Ham lives in West Columbus and fishes Murray every chance he gets. As a member of the Sandhill Bass Club he fishes club tournaments on the lake. He also fishes the Low Country Fishers of Men Trail and the Carolina Angler Team Trail on Murray. He has done well in tournaments there and says March is a good month on the lake.

Ham agrees March is a good time to find fish shallow near the bank getting ready to spawn. He will often spend time before a tournament searching for visible bass to know where to fish. One good way to spot bass in the clear water is to get your boat in about 20 yards off the bank and ride with your trolling motor, looking for cruising bass up in five feet of water or less. If you see the bass cruising you know they are there.

The north creeks on Murray are where Ham will be fishing now. He says Camp, Bear, Johns and Beards Creeks are his favorites. Those are the creeks on the north side between the dam and Dreher Island State Park so he suggests putting in at the state park, Hilton Recreation Area or at Lake Murray Marina or Lighthouse Marina. All will give you good access to the north side creeks.

Warm weather and calm winds bring the bass in, often as early as late February. Wind, cold nights and rain may delay them coming in or push them back out. But under normal conditions you can fish the banks back in spawning coves and catch bass during March.

First thing in the morning Ham will start with a stick bait like a Senko or weightless worm and fish them slowly, letting them wiggle their way down near brush, dock posts or any other cover he finds in the shallows. Fish the baits slowly. He says many fishermen work stick baits and floating worms way too fast. You need to let them sink and pull them back up to sink again, not work them with a constant jerking motion.

Ham will then switch to a buzzbait or buzz frog like the Zoom Horny Toad early in March, looking for active bass, especially as the water gets warmer. Run both baits over and around any cover in three to five feet of water. These are good baits to use to locate active bass.

With all your baits stay way back and make long casts. Ham says fishing pressure has made bass on Murray spooky so you need to stay far enough away from them so you don’t scare them.

Another good bait is a jig head worm. Ham likes the Buckeye Pro Model with the spring screw in eye. That arrangement holds the worm on better for the long casts he wants to make with it. He fishes it on the bottom on ten pound test fluorocarbon line. A green pumpkin worm is the best bet on the jig. A jig and pig in greens and browns, to match the crayfish the bass are feeding on, is also good. Work both baits with short hops and let the jig head stand the worm up.

Don’t pass up looking for and fishing for bedding bass, especially in late March. Ham says many fishermen are catching bass on the bed even if they are not sight fishing. Drag a green pumpkin six inch lizard on a light Texas rigged weight or a Carolina rig across bedding flats. If you feel a thump but don’t hook up, throw right back. There is a good chance a bass “blew” the bait out of the bed and might eat it on the next cast.

The Camp Creek area called Crystal Lake is especially good for bedding fish, according to Ham. The water is usually very clear and warms early, and you can sight fish or blind cast in deeper water on gravel and sand bottoms to find bedding bass.

These three local fishermen offer you a variety of baits and methods to fish. They all agree you should stay on the north side of the lake and fish shallow water for prespawn fish. If a cold front comes through back off and fish a little deeper cover.

The lack of grass is hurting Murray but it also means the bass are more concentrated on the cover that is available. Get on the lake this month, try these tactics, and you will have a great trip.