06-04-2009, 09:00 AM
Just got back from a week long trip to Nottely lake in NE georgia. Had a great trip caught alot fish. What a beautiful lake. Nottely is a pretty tough lake to fish, alot of bait, clear water, and really deep. Its size of 4200 acres helped as you could figure things out pretty quick.<br /><br />Spots <br />Caught more spaattts than anything. Each morning and evening I could pretty much have my way with them throwing topwater. The morning bite would last pretty late up until about 8am. Then they became really tough to locate and catch all together. During the day the bite was almost non-exsistent. The same bite was even better right before dark. I couldnt believe how deep of water these fish would come up to hit a bait on the surface. It was nothing to catch them in 20-30ft of water on top and some over deeper water. One night right before dark I pulled up on hump that was about 26ft of water surronded by much deeper water, the graph was loaded with fish right over the bottom. I let it calm down for a few minutes and then smoked em on a topwater they were coming all the way up to hit the bait, unreal. The size of the fish was on the small side biggest I landed all week might have been 1.5 lbs, I had a couple bigger throw the bait, but no magnum spots at all. I threw every topwater U could think of and the best bait by far was a rattlin chug bug, they couldnt stand it. <br /><br />Largemouth<br />The lake was about a foot high and the LM were way back in the creeks. It was pretty neat fishing all the flooded trees, and brush. I caught some nice Lm biggest around 4. But they were extremely hard to catch in the clear water. I cant tell U how many times fish would come out a the brush to get a bait and then not take it. It was pretty much sight fishing 101. You could see all of the fish and most I caught, I saw. I threw all the traditional bass gear, but the best bait by far was a weightless fluke. Saw a couple huge fish that would not bite anything. I started the week with my normal chick line 12-14lb flouro and by the end of the week a tip from a local I was fishing 6 lb flouro and they still acted line shy. Broke off several decent fish but It definitely helped. <br /><br />Stripers<br />I had the hopes of catching a good striper on topwater it just never happended. Every night stripers, and hybreds would come to the surface feeding like crazy, and a couple nights I hammered em. The only problem was they were all 12-14inch stripers. There were tons of them any small topwater they would crush if the school was fired up. It was alot of fun for sure. Just by what I saw each night the lake is loaded with stripers and there are alot of huge stripers in the lake. The lake record is 59lbs and I saw a picture of a 50 pounder caught this may. Most of the locals are pulling huge Bluebacks over over deep water. The neighbor next to our cottage had 2 twin 9 pounders one morning. <br /><br />Overall a great trip and will go back for sure, I love the sight fishing and Im sure early in the spring it would be great. About a 2 hr ride from Soddy, and the best part of the trip, was the low number of pleasure boats and not a lot of fishing pressure at all, rentals for a week are as reasonable as I have ever seen. The only complaint I had Union county Ga is a dry county, had to drive to N.C to get refreshments. Next time I will be stocked <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> emoLaugh emoLaugh <br />Scott