Oconee

[drill instructor]

Thinking about heading there tomorrow, anyone know of good spots to start and how to fish either troll or tightline. Thanks.

[GABoy]

Hey there sorry I am late getting back to you.....Oconee has been REALLY tough lately.....if you wouldn't mind another suggestion if you want some action.....I hate to say it but right now I would almost rather put my boat in the water at Sinclair.....try around the Twin Bridges area.....STAY OUT of the back of the creeks, they are covered with trash.....hay, leaves, tree limbs, etc....get out in the open water and run in and out of the river channel.....somewhere around the 16 - 25 ft. range is where we had some decent luck.......

[GABoy]

One other thing and my personal preference is always to troll, but that is my personal opinion. We used some single 1/32 last weekend up at Sinclair. Of course the water temp has probably dropped just a little bit with all this colder weather coming through, so my guess is that is may have drove them back down just a littler deeper???? Not exactly sure....but you might want to put out some single 1/16 oz and some single 1/32 and use the amount of line and speed of trolling to control your depth.....try to scatter your bait, until you develop some sort of pattern....then start making some adjustments...

Hope that helps!

[rango]

Hey gaboy. you was nice enough to pay me a visit in sc yesterday, so im here in georgia today to pay you a visit. you really sparked my interest when you said you prefered trolling. i like to troll to, but after the spring break, when they leave the shallows im not too adept at it.. Are you pulling your lines out behind the boat? i have a 5 hp honda modified to go extremely slow i use to troll with. last winter i verticle trolled in deep water with heavy weights with the electric and caught some really nice messes like that. if you are pulling lines year round, i wouldnt mind hearing about some of your tactics.

[GABoy]

Hey there Rango - I don't mind sharing at all.....in fact, I am trolling 90% of the time ALL year round....we have had some of our best catches in late December trolling.......

The only times I do not troll is during the middle of the summer......that time of year I will do one of two things....either shoot docks at night or anchor down with some minnows in the stumps....

When trolling the main objective is to mark some fish first and know what depth to go looking for them in......during the colder months they are usually a little deeper......except for that few weeks in the fall where they come back in shallow to feed on shad......

However, like I said, mark some fish in the deeper water to see how far down they are.......then you want to try and put your bait about 2 - 3 ft above them again depending on water clarity......

For instance....say you see suspended crappie at 12 - 15 ft.....you will either need to do one of two things....what I would do is use a double-rigged 1/16 oz.....or you might could try a single 1/8 oz....if you prefer only single-rigging......then slow down my trolling motor and let out line to control depth, you want to try and get it down there with them.......make sure you are still going fast enough with the trolling motor to have some tail action though....somewhere around 1.4 - 1.8 mph would be a good speed.

Don't let out too much line at once though......if you get no bites, but are marking fish....slowly let out 1 ft. - 3 ft. at a time until you trigger a strike....sometimes just letting out line will trigger a strike....so watch your rods after you let out some line. Then after you hook into one....try to pay attention to how much line you had to reel up to get the fish to the boat and try to let back out that much line again when you put it back out......

Does that help any???

[GABoy]

I tried finding some older pictures of some fishing trips last night, but I couldn't find them.....we had one trip where we laid into 105 fish in 2.5 days worth of fishing......talk about a time.....and we don't ever keep any under filet size......the average size was about 1.5 lb or so....and we had 6 that were over 2lbs....

[JimmyS]

Good post Georgia Boy, Good advice on trolling, Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. Like they say you just can't beat that education. Experieance is the best teacher. Thanks again for sharing. Good luck on your next trip. Jimmy S.

[GABoy]

Thanks Jimmy....that is TRULY the only way to learn is to do it over and over and over again.....and you usually learn the most when you come home with an empty livewell.......

[drill instructor]

What jigs do you use GABoy

[GABoy]

I have a VERY LARGE assortment....but, my favorite are the Kaitlin AKA K-Baits....then my second favorite is the AWD type....

I have over 120 colors to choose from depending on the conditions.....

My least favorite is actually the triple-ripple, which I am sure most people love....I just haven't has as much luck on those as the K-baits....