bigbassin'

Lay lake is about ~150 miles west of me. That’s part of the Coosa so I would think Alabama Bass are native there? Some places, such as the flint river where shoal bass still have a strong population, GA DNR not only has no size limit but also encourages keeping your daily bag limit. Lake Lanier on the other hand has a 14” minimum on them. I believe Alabama Bass are native to Lanier however. I no doubt agree that they have done tons of damage, effectively eliminating smallmouth bass in the North Georgia lakes. Seems up to about the middle of the state they out compete largemouth as well, although they are still holding on to some extent. I’m not an expert, but they simply seem better equipped to thrive in deep clear water where chasing bait is more typical than ambushing prey, which sums up the reservoirs going North from Atlanta. While most folks do keep them from what I can tell, I think the damage in the lakes is done and it’s probably not reversible. The lakes right on the GA/TN and GA/NC border in particular are lost causes as far as I can tell, there’s not much left but spots. If I’m correct, the introduction of blueback herring had as much to do with this transition as spots themselves. I think the bigger focus at this point needs to be on preserving the unique red eye bass species/subspecies located locally in rivers and creeks. Shoal bass for example are nearly wiped out from spots.

Anyone find themselves predominantly targeting spots? Been on a roll with these guys the last month or so, in fact that’s the majority of my catches recently. Fishing relatively cover less bottom in 30’ with worms or chasing schooling fish seemingly in the middle of nowhere has been a good change up for me, and I’m catching fish so no complaints. My pb spot is right at 18”, no weight measurement but it probably went 2.5 pounds give or take. Anyone got any mega spots they’ve caught? Any tactics y’all have found that lend themselves better to spot fishing than largies or smallies?

Access is pretty easy, they’re in every canal from the middle of Miami south. Most ponds that way will hold them as well. As long as you don’t come right after a cold front, they’re pretty easy. 3” live shiners or jerk baits worked as fast as you can will catch them. They tend to show themselves within a few casts if they are in the location, if not just keep moving. Cover as much hard structure as you can, once you find them you’ll catch several back to back. Once the bite dies, keep covering water. As for largemouth, if you’re catching peacocks you may be around smaller largemouth (and potentially snook and tarpon) but you’ll want to go several hours north to get into the best largemouth fishing Florida offers. Same deal with the flats, I’m not aware of much in terms of wade able flats as far south as you need to be for peacocks. You’d either need to get a guide or go several hours north for DIY wading. If you go the diy route, flats fishing is pretty straightforward if you are a good bass fisherman. If there’s no grass or oysters, I wouldn’t waste my time on a flat. Tides control everything, no moving water no fish. Low tide is when you’re searching for tailing reds with shrimp/crab imitations. Rising mid to high, follow the current up looking for structure and eventually you’ll be skipping mangroves when it’s all the way up. Swim baits and flukes are the way to go with higher water. Peacocks don’t care what time of day you go, lmb timing depends on weather, flats is pretty much a right at sunup deal. Typically need to be wading by 5:30 AM at the latest, bite is almost always over with by 8:30 AM, everything after that is a waste of time.

In my experience, a lot of the clear, deep mountain lakes in Georgia just don’t hold large bass. It may be lack of harvest like @TnRiver46 said, but I think it’s mostly just that the lakes don’t match the conditions LMB have evolved to thrive in. There’s a reason why spots completely eliminated smallmouth and have effectively done the same with largemouth bass once they’re introduced to these types of lakes in Georgia, they’re just better suited for these these types of waters than the other two. Constantly chasing small, low-calorie nomadic bait rather than being able to ambush panfish and other larger bait produces small largemouth.

No, it’s centimeters. So 2.8” and 3.6”. 4.5” Rebel should work, they’re not picky at all. Just needs to get down 4-5’, twitching as fast as possible, and you’ll get hit. Any cold front completely shuts them down.

Just work a size 7 or 9 husky jerk as fast as you can, they’ll commit. Gold, Silver, or Fire Tiger all work.

Suwannee’s can be caught in the river all the way up into Georgia so there should be some around Live Oak. I don’t think there are any stripers or white bass in the Suwannee. Always possible FWC stocks sunshine bass (mix between the two) like they do in the St. John’s, I’ve never heard of it though.

Which part of the Suwannee? I’ve only fished it once and it happened to be at that time of year. Temp that day was in the mid 40s just after a front. Fished fairly close to the coast, even caught a few redfish on crank baits. Only got a handful of bass, boater did lose one in 5 pound range at the boat. Very scenic river. Now I’ve spent a lot of time wading the Sante Fe which is a tributary to the Suwannee. Always did great with Suwannee bass and largemouth. Very easy to catch either on jigs or t-rigged craws, suwannes were always a big fan of KVD 1.0s tossed against large rock and lay downs. if you’ve never targeted Suwannee bass, I’d strongly encourage it. I think they are the hardest fighting pound for pound bass out there and they are much more aggressive than largemouth.

I threw one on my flipping stick (7’ 6”, HF) once out of convenience and that’s now my preferred rod for buzz baits. Most of my buzz bait fishing is in pad fields or over heavy submerged grass flats so casting distance matters a lot more than accuracy for me. Between the length and the heavy action, I’ve got better control of the fish at the end of a long cast vs. a 7’ MH.

Tampa bypass canal can be decent and it’s got plenty of public access. I’ve got bass up to 5 pounds out of there. Water needs to be moving slightly and on the cleaner side to be productive in my experience. It also seems to fish better in the late winter/early spring, December-March. My guess is with less rain there isn’t as much dirty runoff entering the canal. You’ll want to be in boots and jeans, most of the canal is lined with big rip-rap and knee high brush growing out of it. Certain spots also have gators stacked on top of each other so keep an eye out for that. In all honesty you’re probably better off wading for saltwater fish, while good public water is still slim for that you’ve got more access than freshwater as far as I found. Pretty much any pull off along the road around the bay that leads to a grass flat will likely have trout. Snook and redfish are always a possibility as well although the guys with boats do a lot better, particularly on the reds. Your bass rod will do just fine, make sure you rinse the reel lightly afterwards. Tackle is the same, swim baits, flukes, and spooks being the most commonly used tackle.

I did the same thing but under the reel guide one time. First trip out with a brand new $150 reel and I got 10 consecutive birds nests. Locked down the brakes and solved that but I couldn’t get any distance. I spent an hour very disappointed with my purchase until the mistake was caught...

We wound up in the middle of a feeding frenzy one day while fishing live shiners that lasted about 20 minutes. We’d toss the bait into the school and have a fish on before the bobber hit the water.

Flint River in Georgia.

Waded about a 1 mile stretch on the Flint today. Shoal bass were the target. Water temp was probably upper 70s/very low 80s. I don’t have anything to officially check with but it was very comfortable to be in. Visibility was about 2’ foot with a very silty tinge to it. Started the day at 8:00 AM throwing a chrome spook around a set of shoals I’ve had luck on in the past. Nothing for about 30 minutes, switched to a green pumpkin rage swimmer. No success with this either so I moved up to the next set of shoals, fan casting along the way with no hits. Quickly changed from the swim bait over to a jig. Tried both swimming it and dragging it but neither technique produced. Tried a spinner bait briefly, nothing there and I went back to the jig. I think I almost had a deer walk out of the woods next to me while I was at that second set of shoals. About 75’ down river was a bedding area, bank was covered with deer tracks, and I heard quite a bit of movement in the brush. When the movement sounded like it was right on the other side of the bushes, I could strongly smell some kind of animal there. Reached a third set of shoals around 11:00 AM that I’d never fished before. Worked the shoals for a bit with no luck. This patch was located on the inside bend, with no rocks/visible cover or structure along the outer river bend. For no particular reason I launched a cast to the outer bend and immediately hooked a shoal bass as my jig sank. Proceeded to miss fish on two back to back casts to the same spot, switched trailers and that landed me a 2nd shoal bass. I thought I had them figured after this, but it would be 3 hours until my next hit... After making it up to the 5th set of shoals with nothing since those previous two, I figured I’d call it a day. On my way back, I noticed a sand-bottom trough that was roughly 6’ wide by 15’ long, current flowing through it, and grass on either side, I figured one cast with my jig couldn’t hurt. Got a short strike that took off my trailer’s claws. Switched colors and got another short strike. Went to a t-rig with a zoom speed craw, nothing. Switched to a custom pour craw, nothing. Put on a zoom Z-Hawg (last one I had of course) and caught 6 consecutive shoal bass with the biggest at about 16”. I believe I saw a sturgeon in that trough, not sure if the flint has them. If not, that was one thick ~30” gar. Whatever it was hit the z-hawg when I casted to it and gave me a good fight for about a minute before getting off. After this hit I didn’t get anything else on my next 5 casts. Moved down to the next similar trough and caught 2 shoal bass on ~10 casts. Continued to the next trough and got 1 shoal bass, at which point I lost my craw during the fight. I tried to replicate the trough pattern with a few soft plastics but didn’t get touched again. For whatever reason that z-hawg seemed to be the ticket for the day. Decided to wrap up for good at this point. Total for the day was 11 fish, with 9 coming between 2:30 PM and 3:15 PM. Average fish was about 12” like the one in the picture.

I’m assuming you already fish the Chattahoochee and the Etowah? Shoot me a PM and I can send you some ok spots to try, mostly small largemouth but occasionally you’ll get a decent spot or shoal bass. Doesn’t seem to be much else public water besides Allatoona as far as I can tell. Of course Allatoona doesn’t have much reputation as being a reliable fishery but I’ve seen a guy on a local forum that looks like he does very good from shore there.

Interesting, I always assumed they took off in Montana and Wyoming for trout.

I think the lack of interest is due to regional taste and lack of popularity (from what I’ve seen). I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a drift boat before in person while fishing in the South. In my head at least, I’ve always figured they were a lot like a flats boat where to be most effective one person gets to fish while the other must row (or pole on a flats boat). Drift boats immediately make me think of the Midwest. They may be used other places, but that seems to be where they’re most prevalent from pictures and videos.

Spent September and November fishing for trout, October was the only month in the fall I fished where bass would be. Only fished for about 4 hours total for the month, did catch a few bass and tons of panfish. Overall though, people typically do pretty good fall fishing. My thought on the weather is it gets cold enough to move fish to deep water, and without a boat I can’t really access them. I don’t think it’s cold enough that they completely shutoff, you just have to know what you’re doing to catch them. My other issue is that most of my fishing is wading rivers, which most rivers are high, fast, muddy, and cold during winter time making it unsafe to access most spots.

Are you targeting green bass or brown bass? I really feel you miss a lot of largemouth, especially in cover, with the bitsy bug. I don’t think it gets you any additional strikes either. Personally I’ve stopped fishing the bugs for largemouth. Now where the size of the bitsy bug was useful for me was targeting Suwannee bass. 9” is about average, 12” is a stud and their mouths are proportioned to their bodies the way a smallmouth’s is. Hookup ratio was the same between the bitsy bug and mini flip, number of strikes were a little higher on the bug. If your goal is to catch creek bass or a species of smaller redeye bass, they should work fine.

I’d recommend the bitsy flip instead, much better hook (cheap 2/0 vs decent 3/0) imo and my hookup ratio is much better. If you aren’t set on strike king, my favorite flipping jig for 1/4 or 3/8 oz is the Missile Baits Ike Mini Flip. Solid 4/0 hook, good skirt, comes through grass and wood very well. With that said, the bitsy bug is the easiest of the three to find and it gets bit. You can also find them for $.88 fairly regularly vs. $3.00 for the bitsy flip and $4.00 for the mini flip.

If the area you’re looking at is in North Georgia, fall would probably be the way to go. I’m not sure I’d make a trip north of Macon in the wintertime. In and around Atlanta last year, I didn’t catch a bass from around December until March, didn’t consistently catch them until April and May. From what I saw, there weren’t many bass reports being posted during the time I wasn’t catching fish so I don’t think it was just me. Now you say small private ponds, which to me sounds more like South Georgia. Winter fishing as you get closer to the Florida line should get better going off of reports I’ve seen, however fall and spring are still going to be the best. Be aware I’ve never fished between Macon and the Florida line so that’s just secondhand information. If the goal is to reach the best winter bass fishing or to escape the cold, I’d recommend you keep going south to Central Florida. November through the end of March is the best season for fishing down there.

Bite window definitely doesn’t stay open for long during South Florida summer. I’ve had days where I felt by 7:45-8:00 it’s over.

First video that popped up looked like a cool area. I always associate whitewater rafting with the Ocoee, don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone fishing it. I’ve always understood the hiawassee (trout and smallmouth) and toccoa (trout) to be the better rivers in that area.

The in-line tie is meant to come through cover better. The tie in this position causes the line and job to move through the same plane in the water helping to keep grass or brush from being caught between the jig and the line. These jigs have a tendency to roll over if you’re dragging on the bottom. The perpendicular tie helps the bait stay parallel to the bottom if the line remains tight during the retrieve, while the line angle changes as you get closer to the boat. What this does is if you pop the jig with your rod, there’s less vertical movement in the lure and increased horizontal movement. These jigs will stand up better on the bottom. The downside is cover can catch the line tie or line where it meets the jig. The in-line is better suited for cover (particularly grass) making it the more common of the two for bass from what I’ve always seen. The 90 degree is better for fish that really need the jig to be jigged to get them fired up, for this reason it’s typically the standard for offshore saltwater fish in my experience. They’re also my go to for panfish, typically easier to find in the sizes I’d throw a 2” grub on. Jigs meant for wood and rock often have line ties between either extreme so they stand up better than the in-line ties, while coming through cover better than the 90 degree ties. Edit: I put the 90 degree line tie jigs tend to roll over when I meant to say that about the in-lines.

I’d be coming from north Atlanta so Ocoee is possible on a day trip (only 1.5 hours from me). I always thought all the land on the river was private, but I’ve honestly never looked too hard into it.