The Bite : Lake Allatoona fishing report for December

Our beautiful North Georgia reservoir shines all year long, and winter has its own unique sereneness that only adds to the magic that is Lake Allatoona. And on that note, one of the most beautiful things I have come to witness over the past couple years is the increase of the common loon. It absolutely warms my heart every time I hear one and now I am seeing more and more young loons - a testament that this reservoir thrives with life.

Current water levels are around 826 ft - 14 ft below full pool. With morning surface water temperatures ranging from 41° on the north end to 48/49° midlake, baby - it's cold outside and inside.

This is a great time of year to find the bait huddled thick and often deep, and the fish that we seek to pull on our lines not far behind.

Over the course of the past 2 weeks on guided fishing trips and plenty of scouting and fun fishing, we have come across every predominant species that swims in our reservoir.

The striped bass and hybrid striped bass bite has been pretty strong. There are surely days when they are hard to find, and days when they are easy to find and hard to get to chew. And then there are the days that dreams are made of. Even on the toughest days when we are reminded why it is called fishing and not catching, there can be much to learn while enjoying the serenity of a fairly recreational boating-abandoned reservoir. Many times it's just you and the water.

But let's talk about what gets them to bite - food! There is no doubt that the line sides move around more than most fish. When God gave out fins and tails, it appears he commanded the striped bass and cousins to use theirs the most. So now you have a couple of options - try to chase them around or simply stay put and wait for them to come through to you again. Tough decision sometimes but when concentrating on channel bends and intersections with road beds, ditches and creek mouths, sometimes you staying in place can be found to be most effective. They are still using the channel as a highway for most of the sunlight hours in my observation. Sometimes the activity may be right up on the higher edge/flat of the channel, but oftentimes it's happening right in the depths.

Dripping herring, threadfin shad and especially trout this time of year will often out produce artificials. Running your baits on downlines with a couple free lines in the mix is often sure to catch. Don't forget though - this is predicated on keeping fresh and frisky bait on the hook. Sometimes we forget that when we drill a little 4-in herring 30 to 50 ft down at high speed on a 1-2 oz. sinker, we're not doing ourselves any good. Ease your bait on down through the column to your desired depth. Don't forget to check your baits in five minutes or so after your first setup. Check the health of them and you'll pretty much have a good idea of what you can get away with in the same area for the duration of your trip. The same goes for gizzard shad Now, if you are fishing with some rainbow trout, they are pretty tough and typically only need to be checked after a big strike and potential miss.

On these windier days, trolling artificials may be the ticket. Yesterday during higher west winds and whitecaps on the reservoir, we pulled into our favorite little section of Kellogg Creek and found fish stacked all over. Same thing though - they are on the move and you can sit still and wait for them to come to you, or you can go get after them with the bigger motor. We chose for the ladder and hammered them on the Captain Mack's minis. Big football sized hybrids often chomping two to three at a time on the lines kept us quartering the waves and going back for more. There were hefty schools, and while those schools were scattered, they were still schools. Running through this same area showed myriads of schools of crappie, often stacked above the bait line. Don't think the hybrids and stripers weren't also watching their every move, looking for a smaller stray to chomp on.

Spotted bass bite has been pretty good also. While a lot of our recent endeavors chasing them have included fishing with live bait, one thing we have noted is that a trout pattern will really smoke them this time of year. This was once again verified by me personally last week when I brought out a half a dozen rainbow trout and found a nice school on a deep ledge. After quickly ripping through those trout, I tied on the very first thing that might have made sense - an A-rigs. The fish were seeming to eat right around the 35 to 40 foot depth coming down a ledge all the way to 90 ft. I thought I could slow roll that A rig and catch them hand over fist. After 20 casts and a little dink, I thought to just try an artificial swimbait. I reached in for the mega Bass slow roll swimbait I had in a trout pattern and commenced to whacking them. I bet I caught another 11 to 12 fish on that bait until they all just got wise to me. It's okay - it was time to go :-)

And rounding back to the crappie - kids these fish are everywhere! They're still off and over deep water and those ones are hard to kind of track down and stay on top of whether still fishing or trolling. But the backs of the creeks are pretty much loaded with them. Getting them to bite is just predicated by what they're doing then. Sometimes they just want the bait almost at a standstill and you're not going to catch those fish trolling. Yes - you can dead stick for crappie too :-)

Well, after all that rambling, our time is up for now. There are fish to be caught. There will be more to come and just keep an eye out for a little tidbits here and there. For those of you that are site members and use the mobile site, I think there's a way for you to allow for push notifications.

I've been sending out some real-time reports and hotspots while on the water. I get it that the fish may be there and gone but when you see this after I might have posted in the morning, if your fishing time is in the afternoon, you might just happen back across some of those wonderful fish :-)

A humble request: if you haven't already, we'd ask that you might give us a like and follow on the social channels. Predominantly just FB and IG though we do pump up some content to YouTube here and there.

(And on that note, if any of you personally or have nieces/nephews that are looking for a project, I have nearly 250 GB of video and photos that could really use some editing and compilation.)

Wishing you and your families a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

! God bless you always. - Joseph