Doug Nelms
February 4, 2003
Lake Oconee - Freshwater Fishing Report
Lake Oconee/Crappie
February 4, 2003
Temp *48
The crappie fishing is coming to life here at Lake Oconee as our annual “catch them in the flats” action begins to heat up. Some HUGE fish have been caught over the last week and for all of you Oconee veterans, we are finding them up in the sticks around the Redlands and up the Apalachee River side in the channel.
A friend of mine stopped by the house just yesterday and proudly displayed a cooler full of 1 ½ to 2-pound slabs that he caught right in front of my house. I think his words were “Doug you could have thrown a baseball and hit me in the boat”.
The method for catching these slabs is the tried and true art of sssslllloooww trolling Hal Flies tipped with minnows. The catches have been coming in around 6 to 10 foot of water.
If it is hybrids you are interested in, I spotted the largest concentration of fish ever seen by electronics in the River Bend area just 2 days ago. Why I couldn’t catch a single fish still amazes me, but they are there and I know your luck has to be better than mine was.
If you are looking for bait, go to Sugar Creek and throw your net one time. If you net is big enough you will catch enough bait to fish all day………..Especially if you fish as I did 2 days ago.
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!
