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Lake Oconee Fishing Report

 
Mark Smith Guide Services call 404-803-0741
www.reeltimeguideservice.com
Chek weather for lake allatoona fishing

Our DVD "Rods, Reels and Lures for Bass" is now on sale for only $25.00 including shipping. Send a check payable to Southern Fishing Schools Inc. to: Southern Fishing Schools Inc to 106 Hickory Ridge Drive, Cumming Georgia. Please allow 14 days for delivery.


 “SONAR WITH KEN STURDIVANT”

See samples of the New Lowrance HDS Structure Scan Down Scan at this address: http://havefunfishing.com/fishingreports/lowrance.htm

Ken Sturdivant, Lowrance Professional Fishing Staff will be conducting FREE! Sonar Seminars at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Lawrenceville Georgia. All seminars are the last Saturday of each month. All seminars are subject to change without notice.


May 17, 2013

LAKE OCONEE IS FULL, 69-73 DEGREES

Bass fishing is good. The lake is full, stained north clearing on the south end. The shad are spawning and the best bite is early. Top water baits around rip rap and sea walls. Small Zara spooks have been working best. Other baits that have been producing at times are a white spinner bait, Rat L Traps and buzz baits. Make sure you match the color to the water. The water color is from heavy stain up the rivers to clear in Richland creek, so make sure your bait matches the color. As the sun gets up move to docks in water from 6 to 15 feet deep and work a soft plastic under the docks and around the wood stricter around them.

Line side report by Mark Smith of Reel Time guide service. Phone 404-803-0741 or reeltime@bellsouth.net

Line side fishing fair to good. The fish have started to move away from the dam and are staging on the humps up the lake. Live shad fished on down lines have been out producing all other baits. The white bass bite has started in the after noon on the mid lake creek humps. Use your Lowrance to locate the schools and then use a Capt. Mack's spoon and drop it into the schools.

Crappie fishing is fair. The fish have move into the timber at a depth of 10 to 20 feet. Use your Lowrance to locate the schools in the timber and drop a live minnow to them.


Take a look at www.bassminder.com for some great bass fishing products.


If you would like to have a free set up sheet for your sonar, send me an e mail to kensturdivant@earthlink.net and ask for the “Sonar Setup Quick List”.

We have these books for sale: “BASS FISHING ON WEST POINT LAKE”, “BASS FISHING LAKE RUSSELL”, “BASS FISHING WEST POINT LAKE” and “BASS FISHING LAKE HARTWELL”. These books are written by Tim White and Ken Sturdivant and each one has over 65 locations exclusively for bass and covers every week of the year. Each book $39.00. If you would like a sample of any book, send us an e mail to kensturdivant@earthlink.net. Our mailing address is: Southern Fishing Schools Inc. 106 Hickory Ridge, Cumming Georgia 30040.


Lake Oconee is located mainly in Greene County, near the towns of Madison and Greensboro. The 19,050 acre reservoir is operated by Georgia Power Company with Lake Sinclair as a pump storage (pump back) hydropower generation facility. This unique operation in combination with the lake’s long, narrow shape produces noticeable water current throughout the lake during power generation and pump back. Fish tend to be more active and feed more aggressively when water is moving through the dam. Fifty plots of timber topped off below water level and 1,250 acres of standing timber were left along creek and river channels to serve as fish attractors and provide fish habitat. Public access is readily available through eight Georgia Power and U.S. Forest Service boat ramps and parks. Several lakeside marinas also offer lodging, food, bait, tackle and other fishing related services. Lake Oconee’s slot limit is intended to improve bass growth by encouraging selective harvest of smaller bass. Under this 11 14 inch protected slot, largemouth bass less than 11 inches and over 14 inches may be kept, while bass between 11 and 14 inches must be released. Removing smaller bass will improve bass growth by increasing the food supply for the remaining bass. Continued harvest of small bass will be necessary to improve bass growth at Oconee. The removal of small bass is essential for slot limits to work, while harvest of larger bass is optional. Spinnerbaits and crank baits fished around riprap and rocky areas are popular for bass all year long. During the summer months, most fish are caught on main lake points, around deep bridges and steep banks, or up the Oconee and Apalachee rivers above I 20. Deep diving crank baits fished around main lake points produced many excellent catches of largemouth during the summer. Drop shots and jig head worms on points and offshore humps has produced good catches as well.
Good numbers of harvestable size crappie should be available again this year. For large numbers and large fish, anglers should be on the water from February through April, with the biggest slabs usually caught on warm afternoons in February. Fishing around standing timber in Sugar Creek and the upper end of the lake is a good bet for crappie in the spring, as are the upper ends of other major creek arms such as Richland, Sandy and Lick creeks. Stay out toward the mouths of the creeks, near the main lake, in early February and gradually move back towards shallow water as the temperature increases in the spring. Bedding crappie can be caught around shallow cover when water temperatures reach the low 60s.
White bass and hybrids will make spawning runs up the Oconee and Apalachee rivers in March and April, and the fishing can be great on the right day. Little George’s, rooster tails, small crank baits and curly tail grubs are the best lures for white bass on the spawning runs. Hybrids can also be caught in April and May in the middle and upper end of the reservoir around bridges and other rip rap feeding on spawning threadfin shad. Hybrid fishing was excellent in 2007 for numbers of fish, and quite a few hybrids in the 5 – 10 pounds range were caught. Hybrids will often school in the middle third of the reservoir throughout the summer, and then move to the lower end of the lake throughout the winter. The Oconee River arm from Lick Creek down to the dam is especially good for hybrids in the winter. Anglers may begin to see more striped bass this year. The young stripers will likely be mixed in with hybrids and white bass. In addition to hybrids, WRD has been stocking striped bass over the last few years and some of these fish should enter angler’s creels this year. If striped bass perform well in Lake Oconee, the long range goal is to phase hybrids out of the Altamaha River basin reservoirs, which includes Lake Oconee, Lake Sinclair, Lake Jackson and several other smaller impoundments. WRD will stock a mix of stripers and hybrids again this spring.
Catfish angling is excellent on Oconee, but the population is changing with the expansion of the recently introduced blue and flathead catfish populations. While there are still plenty of smaller channel and white catfish that can consistently be caught throughout the lake, the number of small, 6 10 inch fish has declined slightly and the overall size and quality of catfish has improved. Blues and flatheads continue to expand their population, and numerous flatheads over twenty pounds have been caught in the recent past. Live shad or bluegill and cut bait are the best baits for flatheads, and hot summer nights are the best time to catch them. Morning and night fishing is particularly good for all species of catfish during the warm summer months, and the consistent bite makes them a great fish to target when introducing kids to fishing. Worms or cut bait fished on the bottom are best options for this species.


We have these books for sale: “BASS FISHING ON WEST POINT LAKE”, “BASS FISHING LAKE RUSSELL”, “BASS FISHING WEST POINT LAKE” and “BASS FISHING LAKE HARTWELL”. These books are written by Tim White and Ken Sturdivant and each one has over 65 locations exclusively for bass and covers every week of the year. Each book $39.00. If you would like a sample of any book, send us an e mail to kensturdivant@earthlink.net. Our mailing address is: Southern Fishing Schools Inc. 106 Hickory Ridge, Cumming Georgia 30040.

We teach “ON THE WATER SCHOOLS”: “Rods, Reels and Lures for Bass or Maps and Depth Finders. Call 770 889 2654 for details or see the web site: www.havefunfishing.com.