A LOT of Water Coming

It seems likely any creek fishing ideas I might have might need to be put on hold for a few days anyway. Streams in my area are certain to be blown out by this afternoon.

I haven’t seen an actual rain volume forecast for this one. I just know it’s supposed to hit hard, all at once, pour for a few hours, and continue raining at a more moderate rate for a few more hours.

It’s not a bad thing. Our streams in the northeastern corner of Georgia are low for March. Heavy rains refresh the systems in the big picture and moderate late summer warming. It just hampers immediate fishing plan. 

It’s also 60 degree outside now, and we might get flurries on the backside of the rain this afternoon. That has nothing to with fishing prospects. It’s just very interesting to me and pretty weird, even for March!

A Few More Species Added to 2026 Catch List

My most recent post focused on others’ reports of fish biting because I hadn’t been out, and I ended it with me saying I hoped my next post would be a positive fishing report of my own. I’m glad to say that is indeed the case.

I can’t report a bunch of fish or a red hot bite. In fact, I only caught three fish in a couple of short afternoon outings. That said, all three were different species, and all were species I’d not yet caught this year. Bartrams bass, redbreast sunfish and shoal bass bring the 2026 species total to nine.

All were caught on Rebel Ultra-Finesse Jigs, which I was taking photos of as my primary objective both afternoons. They are brand new from Rebel. In fact, they were just released on Lurenet today! Because they are so new, I’m pretty confident I caught the first-ever Bartrams and Shoal bass on them. 

To check out the catches, hop on over to Fishing on Foot on YouTube.

As a bonus, the Bartrams bass gets me started on this year’s Georgia Bass Slam. 

Shoal bass are a qualifying species also, but the minimum size for keeping a shoal bass is 15 inches, so that’s also the minimum for a Slam qualifying fish, and mine was only 11 inches. Good chance I can find a bigger one eventually this year.

All three were fun to catch!

Spring Springing

Flowers in my yard suggest that spring is springing,  and fishing reports I have been hearing concur. I need to go experience the fishing part myself for the change to be fully real to me.

The catch-logging/social app Fishbrain really lit up last week, with folks all around my region sharing pics of bass, trout, crappie, bluegills and more. Someone is always catching something — even when conditions are bad — but last week saw more than a small uptick in fish pics shares!

My buddy Jeff (Str8slayem on Fishbrain) is among those who really caught them well. Largemouth, smallmouth, spots, Coosa bass, rock bass, crappie and bluegill were just some of fish he found during recent creek outings. Two of his most productive baits during recent outings, both from Rebel Lures, were a LIVEflex Cata Crawler and a Crickhopper.

The Crickhopper is one of my go-to lures for creeks and rivers, but I’ve seldom thrown it this early in the year. Based on his recent success, I’m going to have to try it my next time out!

I’m not sure when that next time out will be, but it kind of seems like it needs to be as soon as I can make it happen! Hoping the next post will be my own report!

Better than No Fish

I knew pickings might be slim. While some trout can be found year-round in the river section I chose to hit, it’s pretty stocking dependent, and this year’s first spring stocking hasn’t happened yet — although it should be very soon!

I wasn’t too worried about catching prospects. Days are finally long enough to allow for quick after-work outings, the weather was good, and no one needed an afternoon ride anywhere. I was glad to be going fishing, and a near-home spot with quick and easy bank access seemed like the best plan.

Of course the afternoon’s start falsely elevated my hopes. I made my first cast to the far bank, beneath a bridge, and a fish bit almost immediately. Not long after I was admiring and then releasing a beautiful brown trout. 

I fired back to the same spot to no avail and then proceeded to work that spot and another nearby thoroughly before moving to another access area.

To shorten the story, I ended up hooking one more brown trout at the other spot and get it almost to the rod tip before it got off. That was it, though. Zero other fish caught, strikes detected or followers seen. 

Oh well. One fish beats no fish, and even no fish beats staying home and only wondering what the fishing would have been like!

Classic Coming Back Near Home

A few days ago BASS announced that the 2027 Bassmaster Classic will be return to Lake Hartwell, marking the fifth time the Classic will be held at Hartwell.

I was glad for that announcement because Hartwell is  close to home for me. The launch area is about an hour from home, and the nearest part of the lake is only about 20 minutes away.

A year away, it’s hard to say what role I’ll have with next year’s Classic. Some years I’ve been in the thick of things. I’ve ridden with pros on competition days a couple of times and have been in the media room backstage or right by the stage several times, including when Alton Jones won at Hartwell in 2008. 

Other years, I’ve been totally separated from the event, only watching from the computer at home. That will be the case for this year’s Classic, which will be held in Knoxville and is less than two weeks away.

Whatever my part turns out to be, I always enjoy Hartwell events simply because of familiarity with the lake and how it fishes, and it’s hard to imagine that I won’t at least be around a takeoff or two - and I’ll probably be around the media room and weigh-ins. 

Basement Studio Progress

 

The studio space I’m developing in my “fishing basement” has taken significant strides since I posted about it a few days back. In fact, instead of just having opened a place where I could have a consistent set and controlled environment for filming occasional intros and off-water videos, I suddenly have a space where I’m excited to film something.

The space is in an unfinished basement beneath a room addition. It has block walls and a cement floor and a pull-string light but no outlets. It is essentially a closet for outdoors junk, which admittedly is kind of a mess.

A few weeks ago, it was a total mess, and I waded into a gradual reorganization project. Somewhere along the way I started wondering about carving out a corner for occasional off-the-water filming needs for my Fishing on Foot YouTube channel.

I indeed started with a corner and with a very nice green office chair a friend had wanted gone — which was perfect for what I had in mind. When I wrote the last post, a corner had been cleared and the chair moved to the basement, and I was considering using a big cooler as a table.

Since that time I’ve switched from the compressed corner to a longer wall space at my wife’s suggestion, painted that wall with some great “oops” paint she found at Lowe’s, added a bookshelf (for fishing gear — not books) that other friends were giving away, and moved a trunk from our porch as a table, which looks far better than the giant cooler.

I’ve also ordered a couple of battery-powered studio lights, added few framed pictures to the wall, and some put stuff on the shelves. I still need a mic for the best functionality, but I think I’m getting close to having a decent little studio space. Of course I’m sure it will continue to evolve, but the base is in place, and I’m eager to put it to use.

Basement Filming Studio?

My most recent post noted that I’ve been at work on my basement, gaining order in the area where I keep fishing gear. A part of that has been carving out a corner as a filming studio.

That sounds fancier than what I have in mind. I don’t even have electrical outlets and will need extension cords just for lights. However, I want a space with a standardized set, controls of lighting and minimized external sound for filming intros and other video elements and possibly some video shorts for my Fishing on Foot YouTube channel.

As you might guess, my videos are mostly filmed knee deep in a stream or the surf or from the bank of a pond or lake, and that should never change if I don’t want boring videos (which I don’t). That said, sometimes there’s need for some off-the-water filming, and on a few occasions, I’ve battled to find the best spot for such needs. And I do have a couple of ideas for shorts series that could be done in that sort of setting.

I’m not sure what the set will look like yet. I’ve figured out the best corner, opened some space and put a few possible elements in place. I have ideas about the rest and have even bought some paint. In truth, it’ll probably be an evolving space — changing as I look at it and work within it and identify possible improvements.

And who knows when I’ll first use it in a video. For now, it’s just one element of the bigger basement project.

Video-related, if you haven’t checked out Fishing on Foot and subscribed, I’d certainly appreciate you doing so!