My Fishing Reports - August 97
Unless otherwise mentioned, these reports are for West Point Lake.They are colored by my personal preferences ( I guess most are). No reports on live-bait or deep-water fishing (I fish almost exclusively with a fly rod - usually shallow water), no reports that include far-flung locations on the lake (unlike some "bass-masters" on the lake I don't like to "set the water on fire" while racing from one spot to another), and no catfishing reports (`though I'm dying to catch one of those big carp on a fly).


8/31- 6:30 am - Yellow Jacket Creek - Broke off big fish at rip-rap on at bridge. Took numerous small spots off long point in creek mouth. No schooling - wind was up, as was traffic. Quit at 11, still sick over 7am fish and lost popper.

8/27- 6 pm - river channel - Scattered hybrid schooling at Hybrid Point - good size fish. Almost as many fishermen as fish.

8/25- 3 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek & river channel - On long point of YJ, took numerous good spots 15-20' deep w/sinking line and white clouser. Occassional surface schooling only. Small fast-moving cloud with major lightning drove me under bridge just as big school came to top - I love to catch fish, but with a 9' graphite lightning rod in my hand I'm cowardly in a thunderstorm.
After cloud passed, water calmed and I moved to flats off river channel near Hybrid Point. A few spots chasing shad on top. Moved around to cove and found largemouth busting bait in very back - all size fish, 10" to 18". Action near bank continued long after bass went down - yeah!
Back to another flat off channel - mixed fish on top (though just a couple of small hybrid). Took many nice spots and largemouth near shore on multi-color popper. Water temps are definitely down ( 80's)- maybe the largemouth are ready to come shallow to feed.

8/22- 6 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek & river channel - Took one largemouth (14") off rip-rap at bridge. Back up river to last nite's spot - no action, so fished deep cove - only 1 small spot. At 7:30 back to sandbar shoal - spots and largemouth schooling - took 6 (plus one small hybrid) on popper, including 20" largemouth only 10' off bank.

8/21- 6 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek & river channel - Fished w/friend. As we left his dock in deep cove just off main river and got on plane, we saw a fish chasing bait on bank - we circled and shut down and, as huge wake rolled to shoreline, my 3rd cast with a white clouser took 16" largemouth about 15' off bank. This turned out to be a good omen for the evening!

Mouth of Yellow Jacket - no action - very windy.

Moved up river above pumping station. Large schools of hybrid scattered in main channel - 12-15" fish - took white roostertail and white clouser. Followed school to near shore and they went down - moved up to next cove mouth and caught a couple more but they were small & scattered.

As dusk fell, we moved just downstream to sandbar and there they were! Tight to the bank and staying there - we caught dozens on roostertails and multi-color popper. Thank goodness I'd switched from clouser - tho I'm sure it would have taken the fish, a topwater is so much fun with these guys. They bash it; they knock it into the air - often missing only to come back again and again. Two or three fish will fight over it before wins out, sometimes right at the boat.

My buddy doesn't like to be on the water after dark (at his age, night vision is failing), but, believe me, it was near black as we headed back down the river! I looked over at him - hunched over the wheel, peering intently ahead, his face dimly lit by the instrument panel and a hint of red in the sky over his shoulder - you have never seen a bigger grin on anyone's face. Unless you could have seen mine.

8/20- 6 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek - Lots of schoolies (spot & hybrid) at creek mouth - didn't stay up long, but stayed in area - took many on lead-eye white clouser minnow. When schools push bait over near deep banks, there is often a big largemouth or spot hanging around after the schoolies leave - probably been drawn to area by all the fuss and is hanging around picking off stragglers - whatever, a 19 1/2" lm took my white 1/0 foam popper this way right after the schoolies went down.

8/17- 6 am - Yellow Jacket Creek - Two large spots off rip-rap at bridge before sunup. Very small schoolies deep in cove early - had bait pushed all the way to bank and were bashing `em. Wind was up & little top-water action in creek mouth, but caught spots & largemouth on long point with white deer hair & sparkle clouser - switched to popper, and they'd occassionally come up for it (including 17" largemouth), but caught most subsurface 2-10' deep.

8/15- 6 am - lower lake & the dam - Fished old pond dam in cove at daylight - 2 keeper-size largemouth on white/green clousers at about 10' and 2 spots chasing bait on top. Moved to dam rip-rap - spots & largemouth in scattered small schools on Bama side. Took white popper - one was 18" largemouth. These schools rose sporadically til near noon. Took only one hybrid, about 16", on blind cast w/ sinking line & clouser.

8/13- 6 pm - Yellow Jacket Creek - Numerous small schools of spots and largemouth coming sporadically & quickly to top, mainly on long points into channel. These schools are fun because you never know what size fish may hit (hybrid schoolies are usually uniform in size, so when you catch one that's the size the rest will be). I didn't catch too many, as they came up and then, very quickly, were gone, but they varied from 11" spots to 17" largemouths. They took white popper; others were catching them with popping corks.

8/12- 6 pm - Whitewater Creek & river - Caught a few spots and largemouth chasing bait on surface at point just down from White Water launch. Not a lot of surface action and no hybrid here or up creeks. Moved to Hybrid Point at dusk a found one lone little hybrid on shoal with a blind cast. I hope these hybrid know it's just about tme to go back to school!

8/10 - Callaway Gardens - Pine Mt., GA. - 6:30 pm - WOW! Fished with Carter Nelson, the fly-fishing guide at Callaway Gardens. We actually were "scouting the water" for the coming week (tough work, but someone's gotta do it). The azaleas may be beautiful and the light shows fantastic (they say the golf is good, too - who cares?), but little compares to world-record-size red-breasted sunfish on the end of a fly line. Flowers and light shows pale next to these fish - savage, beautiful predators who put on a fantastic show. We saw them tailing (coulda been bonefish or reds) in shallow water, we saw them waking as they pursued our flies, and we saw their tropical colors as we released them back into this lovely pond.

We caught bass, too, and several nice bluegill. The bass we caught weren't large, but there are some trophies here. These ponds are old and virtually unfished for almost 50 years; they are now carefully monitored and managed. How do I know they're large bass? Two ways: 1) Carter told me based on personal catches and electro-shocking surveys; and 2) all the bluegill and shellcrackers we caught were 10" and over, so something is happening to the smaller bream. That is to say something is eating 9" bream - BIG BASS!

The lake we fished is right on a main road into the gardens - it's natural on two sides, and grassed and manicured on the other two adjacent the road. On one cast my "floating wooly-bugger" (a Carter special) landed just on the edge of the grass; I plopped it gently into the water and before I could start a retreive, a big red-breast came from deeper water, half his body showing as he closed on the fly and took with a huge splash.

Carter is a young man who knows his business. I foolishly ignored his advice on fly selection until he outfished me, then he was kind enough to turn me on to one of the hot flies (black sneaky petes & floating wooly-worms). He also suggested the dam side of the lake to start, but I picked the other side - of course, we didn't catch many fish til we hit the dam side. Next time, I'll take good advice.

North Georgia Trout Online has a detailed review of Callaway fishing if you want more info.

Or you can contact the Gardens office at 1-800-Callaway, the flyshop at (706) 663-5142 or Carter directly.

8/5- 6 pm - Whitewater Creek - No surface action, so I fished deep bend in channel w/ sinking line and clouser minnow - 2 nice spots & 1 largemouth. About 7:45 they started coming to top - no time to switch to floating line & popper - didn't matter, when they're coming up like this they'll take ANYTHING - caught mixed bag of hybrid, spots & lm. About 8:30 moved to rr bridge - no boats or traffic. Tied white popper on to sinking line - this an interesting combo - popper floats & chugs (more than pops) on surface, then on steady retreive submerges, then floats back to top when you stop retreiving. On third cast to rip rap at upstream corner, about 3' from bank, I got blasted. Never had a big bass hit this way - I'd cast and chugged once, and just as I started to again, the popper disappeared as a big largemouth came almost completely out of the water (I swear) under it. He turned out to be 20 1/2" - on this note I headed home, in the dark again.

8/3- 6 pm - Whitewater Creek - Scattered hybrid and spots, few on top, but caught `em deeper. Biggest came when you let the lure sink before beginning retreive.


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