Lake Allatoona Report - 09/06/14

[dougiemac]

Location: Lake Allatoona
Weather: Early AM temps low 70°'s and extreme fog. By 9AM the fog was all but gone and temps were already near 80°.

I got up at 4:30a and was at the I-75 overpass dock and in the water by 5:15a. Ready to catch some bait.

Bait:
Shad weren't as big or as plentiful as they were the last outing we tried to net them, but a half dozen or so net tosses got us a couple dozen keepers.

After we caught bait, we loaded up and left for the Red Top Mountain dock and was in the water again by 6:30AM.

It being a weekend, the lake was BUSY! Our normal go-to spot had a small bass boat already in place before sunrise. Soon after we arrived, two more small boats and two kayakers were nearly bumping us as we trolled on circles.

The Catch:
We immediately hit a decent sized catfish and one Striper. But after the first two hits, everything got quiet, except on the top water which was alive! So we tosses a few out and fished the top that landed us a couple average to small sized Large Mouth Bass.

We moved to another spot further down the lake and hit a couple more Large Mouth Bass on top and a couple average sized Stripers.

We packed it up by 9:30AM and headed for some B&G (biscuits & gravy) at Doug's Place.

All in all, a bad day fishing is a good day from doing anything else. Especially when you can fish with a buddy, where the conversation is worth more than the fish.

Besides, the wife and her friend are at the 2-Day Oprah thing downtown, and I couldn't stand listening anymore to Opraism's.

QOTD: What is the biggest, craziest, or most interesting thing you've pulled out of Allatoona?

 

[Okuma]

Those are actually hybrids and not stripers. Hybrids are a cross between a striper and a white bass.

 

[dougiemac]

Those are actually hybrids and not stripers. Hybrids are a cross between a striper and a white bass.

Doh! I can't tell the difference... I'm used to large mouth and small mouth bass and crappie being about the only fish I used to ever pull out of the ponds, lakes and streams growing up in Ohio.

What's the easiest way to tell the difference between a Striper and a Hybrid?

 

[cq]

Try here:
http://www.southernstripes.com/stri...n-Hybrids-Stripers-White-Bass-and-Yellow-Bass

http://www.arkansasstripers.com/identification-white-bass-striped-bass-hybrid-bass.htm

 

[Okuma]

Most of the time you can tell a hybrid by the broken stripes on their sides, and if they are larger fish they tend to be more football shaped than a striper is.

Sometimes you can tell by how they react when hooked. At least on Allatoona and Carter's, the Hybrids go straight down and the Stripers head out sideways.

 

[dougiemac]

Ah...okay. I see. Well I think I may need to go fishing more to be able to get it down to a science.