Lake Burton and tidal Savannah River are about as different kinds of water you can fish in Georgia, but both hold bass.  My retirement job took me to both in the past week.

Lake Burton is a beautiful 2775-acre Georgia Power Lake on the Tallulah River in north Georgia between Clayton and Cleveland.  Its 62 miles of shoreline are lined with huge houses with big docks, and its steep banks are covered with rock.  Views of mountains surrounding it are very pretty.

Crystal clear mountain water is the norm there unless heavy rains stain up some of the creeks.  Moccasin Creek State Park is also the home of a fish hatchery where trout are raised, and many are released into the lake, both intentionally and accidentally.

Although it is a good trout fishery, its big spotted and largemouth bass are the main attraction there. It also produces many chain pickerel and crappie.

I fished on a cold cloudy Tuesday with Jeremy Eaton, a local tournament angler, and the fishing was tough.  The January snows up in that area had melted and made the lake go up about five feet while dropping the water temperature more than five degrees.  That combination gave the fish lockjaw.

I enjoyed the trip and could imagine easing around the backs of coves looking for big largemouth on the bed, especially around the full moon on April 16.  And spotted bass will be bedding then, too, and easy to catch out on rocky points and humps.  Jeremy marked ten good places to catch bass in April for my Georgia Outdoor News (subscription required) Map of the Month article.

The houses are amazing.  Jeremy pointed out a huge house up on a high point at the mouth of Timpson Creek and said Nick Saban built it. He built it to see if he liked having a house on Lake Burton and he did, but rumor has it this one was too small, so he built a bigger one.  Its only 9542 square feet with 7 full and two half-baths and the tax office appraised it at 2.6 million.  And it is not the biggest on the lake, by far!

Go up to Lake Burton for a nice vacation and take your boat. Enjoy the lake and mountain scenery and catch some trout for dinner, and some big bass to stretch your string.

I fished the lower Savannah River last Sunday with Billy Robertson, a local club fisherman.  The views were very different. No mountains in the background, just flatlands that extended forever.  And cypress trees and live oaks with Spanish moss beards replaced the barren hardwoods of Lake Burton.

I am not used to fishing current, so when we fished on the river Billy kept the boat pointing upstream and ran his trolling motor on high to keep the boat slowly moving downstream I was surprised. I had to cast fast to hit eddies behind trees in the water and small pockets along the bank.

Back in the creeks where we spent most of our time the current was still strong from the outgoing tide. Although we were miles upstream, above the I-95 bridge most of the day, the tide still affected the river.

We did catch fish. Billy quickly hooked a four-pounder, and our best five of them weighed about 20 pounds. But they were bowfin, fun to catch but we were after bass.

We did catch about a dozen keeper bass that day by casting worms and small jigs to eddies in the creeks but they were small. Most were 12 to 14 inches long but they fought good in the current. 

There are bigger bass in the river. A local tournament took off from the ramp we used and it took five weighing 14 pounds to win, 11 for second and 10 for third. Big fish was a four-pounder. But the rest of the folks had five weighing six or seven pounds, just like our catch.

A highlight of the trip was dinner at Loves Seafood and Steaks. Although very expensive, the gumbo was some of the best I have had and the fried scallops were tender and delicious.

Fishing the river is a fun change of pace for us lake fishermen. There are several ramps just north of Savannah in both Georgia and South Carolina. But one warning, if you get off the river itself and go back in creeks on the South Carolina side, you need a nonresident fishing license.

Details of my trip and how to catch bass on the Savannah River will be in the April issue of Georgia Outdoor News.

Go north or south for a fun change of pace for fishing this spring.