Lake Lanier, GA striper vacation
Always had a dream of living in a house on a lake with a dock so when my wife gave me the “we ARE going somewhere on vacation this year” look, I picked Lake Lanier, Georgia.
Lake Lanier is huge covering 59 square miles and having a reputation as one of the best striper lakes in the country.
We rented a house with a dock on one of the many inlet areas on the Cumming, GA side of the lake.
This is the view looking down from the deck of our rental.
First chance I got I went down to our dock and threw anything just to fish. Caught a small bass on a senko and a nice size spotted bass on a fat Ika. The only place to fish at the house was off the dock due to steep shoreline and private property.
The second day I went to a local fishing shop that had a huge area with large bait tanks containing several sizes of live minnows and blue back herring. Bought some medium minnows to try at the house and flylined them to catch several small bass and one large spotted bass. They had to hold me over until I could get what I came for…Striper
Tuesday was the day I had arranged to go with Tom Blackburn, a guide for Stripers. Met him and two guys from the Lanier Striper Club at 10:00 and headed to the areas where stripers were reported to be caught lately. Most of the many guides at Lanier seem to prefer the same type of boat. Apparently it was not the time of year for the bigger stripers (20 lb. and up) but at Lanier, the average ones are still very nice fish.
The lake is so huge that almost half the day was spent searching the most likely spots all over the lower part of the lake for some marks on the fish finder. Apparently this was a hard day to find where they were.
When we saw a few marks between 40 and 80 feet we dropped a line down with a rod as heavy as my trolling rod and a 2 oz. sliding sinker, 8’ leader and a live blueback herring about the size of a small sardine. They were being picky and we only got one hit that stole the bait.
When the lake was created they flooded an area that had large trees and you have to keep a close eye on the electronics to avoid getting your line caught up in a tree as you drift. We did get stuck a couple times.
The guide had one rod set up with an 8” spoon and he offered it to me to try jigging while we wait for some action on the down rods.
I never really tried jigging but I lowered the spoon to about 50 feet and after 5 minutes I got hit hard by a striper about 7 lb. which is considered a small one at Lanier. Tom had everybody gather around for the photo to celebrate the first fish of the day.
With no more marks on the finder, we went from spot to spot and would only see a stray fish here and there. Finally, a little frustrated at the difficulty finding where they disappeared to, Tom decided we would try some trolling. The setup used a heavier rod and reel than we use locally and lead core line with a single white bucktail and boot tail plastic shad. The lines were out 240 feet as we trolled 3 to 3.5 mph down the middle of the lake in 100+ feet of water. It didn’t take long and we got hit by another nice striper about 8-9 lb. It’s a long retrieve from 240 feet back with a fish that strong!
Kept trolling for about an hour and had one that came off half way to the boat and the big fish of the day at around 15 lb.
Tried the live bait again in the general area where we were trolling and started getting some hits. We landed 2 and lost 2.
I used the jigging spoon again and had one come off halfway up and landed another nice one, still amazed that the jigging spoon worked so well.
We didn’t have big numbers for the day but every fish was big and chunky.
Most of the guides throw back everything they catch since they have to rely on a yearly stocking of very tiny stripers. No breeding in Lanier, its unhook, take a quick photo and launch the fish as hard as possible down through the surface of the lake. Rinse and repeat.
We quit around 4 but I could have stayed there the rest of my life.
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Originally Posted by cutbait
