I got to fish two very similar lakes last week, one in Georgia and one in Alabama. On Friday I drove the four hours to Smith Lake north of Birmingham and met David Kilgore to get information for an Alabama Outdoor News article. Then on Saturday I got up and drove to Lanier to fish a charity tournament. So in two days I was fishing Alabama’s Lewis Smith Lake and Georgia’s Lake Lanier

David Kilgore impresses me. He is an excellent bass fisherman and has qualified to fish the last two Bassmasters Classics. I got to ride with him on the practice day and be his “Marshall” at Hartwell last February. And he has qualified to fish the BASS Elite trail the last three years. That is the top trail and the dream of many fishermen.

But David chose not to fish the trail. He has a couple of fairly young kids and knew how traveling to fish the Elite trail would disrupt his family life, so he did not do it. He does fish almost all tournaments on Smith and does well in them. He finished sixth in a 248 boat tournament there on Saturday.

Smith is a deep, clear lake with a very rocky shoreline, much like Lanier. He showed me ten spots that will be good places to catch bass in November and explained how to fish each spot and which baits to use.

Those tips would help anyone not familiar with the lake catch fish. Once they see David’s patterns they can use that information to find similar places to catch fish all over the lake.

Jennifer Sell is a member of the Flint River Bass Club and helps run the Georgia Outdoor News forum under the name Bayou Betty. She loves to fish and for the past few years has organized and run a charity tournament,

This year it was for The Center for Children & Young Adults a nonprofit organization that takes care of homeless children 12-20 years old in the Atlanta area. Entry fee was $100 and a local business donated $1000 for first place. Second place was $500. With that much money the tournament attracted 25 teams to fish.

Many other businesses also donated items for prizes for lower place teams and a raffle held at the end of the tournament. Most of the fishermen bought at least $10 in tickets, more money for the charity.

I don’t know Lanier very well and knew we had little chance of winning, so I went with the idea to enjoy the day, explore the lake a little and try to catch a few fish. It poured rain all day on us but that didn’t dampen the attitude of the fishermen.

Jenifer and I decided to not run all over the lake since the rain would make riding in a boat miserable. So we stayed near the ramp, fishing one creek. I like to fish that way anyway, picking apart a small area, trying to find some key spots where bass are feeding.

The first couple of hours were frustrating and we got no bites. Then I decided to try a spinnerbait. The cloudy, rainy day seemed to call for that bait. Within a few minutes I landed two keeper spotted bass on it.

We had a lull in catching until about 11:00 then our biggest spot, one a little over 2.5 pounds, hit a jig head worm under a dock. About an hour later we found the key spot, a rocky bank with a lot of baitfish holding on it.

I landed our fourth keeper there on a jig head worm then Jennifer filled our limit with a keeper on the same bait. Then she caught two more in a row that culled two smaller bass, so we had what for me is a decent limit on Lanier.

Our five bass weighed 8.87 pounds and I knew there would be some big stringers brought to the scales. And I was right. It took five weighing over 18 pounds to win and five over 14 pounds for second and third. There were a lot of limits in the 11 to 12 pound range weighed in.

I was not too surprised the winning team had a spot weighing well over four pounds, and there were five or six more weighing between four and five pounds. But big fish was a largemouth weighing almost six pounds!

Bass fishing at Lanier is good right now and will get better and better until late November. Five pound spotted bass are not uncommon and seven pounders are caught. And some local fishermen say they have lost spots that would set a new state record. They say there are nine pound spots in the lake, but spots fight so hard they are very hard to land, even if you are lucky enough to catch them.

The rocky points on the main lake and back in creeks are all good. And you can ride any point or hump with a depthfinder and find brush piles put out by fishermen. I did an article with one local fisherman a couple of years ago and he told me he had 1100 brush piles marked on his GPS!

Give Lanier a try. Or if you want to drive for four hours head to Smith. Both will be a lot of fun to fish this fall.