Doug Nelms
December 7, 2002
Lake Oconee - Freshwater Fishing Report
December 7, 2002
Hybrids/Lake Oconee
The water is 57* and if you can stand the cold, you can catch hybrids and crappie right now at Lake Oconee. Last week we caught a total of 30 plus in a few days of fishing that ranged from 3 pounds right up to almost 8 pounds. The hybrids are hungy and bunching up in the River Bend area, as they follow the shad to warmer water. On Friday I saw something I have not seen this year. Approximately 400 gulls circling a place less than one acre large on the water; diving, screaming, and eating while the hybrids went into an eating frenzy under them. We are catching these fish by down-lining live shad at 12 or so feet. You can catch them while they are schooling but normally they are not the big ones. Keeping bait frisky is the number one challenge because they just don’t like sick-looking bait.
A party I took out last week resulted in action so fast they we could not set out the final two rods in our six rod set up ,for the first 30 minutes for having to reel fish in. What a blast! This will continue for some time and if you want to have some fast, hard pulling, helter-skelter action, put on your warm clothes, and head to Oconee. The crappies are also coming alive due to this cold weather. I talked with an angler on Friday that caught 30 crappie in 4 hours at Sugar Creek. The stringer weighed 45 pounds! The typical Oconee setup is what he used, 12-foot rods, trolling minnow tipped Hal-Flys.
Doug has been guiding on Lake Oconee for over 10 years. His specialty is trophy Striped and Hybrid Bass, and huge Crappie during certain months. His boat is a Ranger 2300 Bay Series powered by a 225 Yamaha 4-stroke motor. It is spacious and can fish up to 6 people! Lake Oconee is the second largest reservoir in the state of Georgia with over 18,000 surface acres of water. The lake is heavily stocked each year with Striped and Hybrid Bass. Doug tries to catch all of them!
