Tom Perdue and I fished Lanier on a Wednesday in early May a few years ago, trying to find some bass and a pattern for me to fish in the Spalding County Sportsman Club tournament that weekend. We had only three keepers so I am not sure we were successful.

Tom was determined to catch a fish on a jerkbait and he threw one a lot. He accomplished his goal when a pretty 2.5 pound spotted bass hit his jerkbait and he landed it. Several hours later we were near a dock and I cast a Trick worm under it when I saw a bass hanging there. It hit and I landed a 3.5 pound spot, one of my top four I have ever caught.

Although we caught a lot of bass shorter than the 14 inch limit, I landed only one more keeper just before we quit. It hit a tube bait near the bank and probably weighed about 2.5 pounds. I hope I catch two as big as the two I got Wednesday in the tournament today!

Lake Lanier was good to Donnie Willis the past few weeks that year. He won both the Potato Creek Bassmasters’ April tournament and the Flint River Bass Club’s May tournament there. Winning back to back tournaments in two clubs is hard to do, even on the same lake.

On April 16th 25 members of the Potato Creek club fished Lanier for nine hours. They brought in 48 bass weighing about 93 pounds. Lanier has a 14 inch minimum size limit on bass and a 14 inch keeper will usually weigh at least 1.5 pounds.

Donnie had a five fish limit weighing 13.34 pounds for first. Chris Corley had five weighing 12.21 for second and had big fish in the tournament with a 4.99 pound bass. Raymond English had five weighing 8.44 pounds for third and Brian Lee placed fourth with 4 bass weighing 7.94 pounds.

Two weeks later on May 1st the Flint River Bass Club fished Lanier and Donnie won with five bass weighing 9.35 pounds. Gary Morrow was second with 8.76 pounds, I placed third with five weighing 7.97 pounds and Tony Roberts was fourth with 7.95 pounds.

There were 16 fishermen in the Flint River tournament and we brought in 40 bass weighing 75.21 pounds. Donnie said he caught his fish on jerk baits and Carolina rigs. I did not have a bass at noon that day after fishing docks and shallow water all morning. At noon I decided to move to main lake points and caught my five in less than an hour on a spinnerbait.