Johnboat Outing Success

 

Although Nathaniel and I only caught two bass yesterday, I'd consider our short afternoon outing a definite success. We implemented Nathaniel's idea of toting the boat inside my Expedition, and for the first time since I traded in my F-150, we were able to tote his johnboat somewhere else and to fish together from it. Yesterday morning, Nathaniel bought a fairly thick plastic tarp, and it worked perfectly beneath the boat to keep the interior of the Expedition dry. The boat was plenty stable in the back, so it worked just fine.

We fished Lake Russell, a 70-acre lake on national forest land that's only about 10 miles from our house. It's a pretty little lake that reportedly has some big bass in it. I suspect that as winter begins giving way to spring, we'll start to tap some of Russell's bounties.

The fishing was slower than we both hoped. With strangely warm weather and falling pressure ahead of a big front, we both had envisioned that the fish might be feeding like crazy. Of course, maybe they were. We don't know the lake and its moods well, and we may have simply not fished the right lures in the right places. Yesterday's only two fish hit an XCalibur Rattle Bait. Both were on the same steep bank at the mouth of a major cove in the lake's lower end and were relating to downed trees.

Big rain coming today. Back to writing fish stories for me!

North Georgia's Other Lake Russell

Nathaniel's brief afternoon outing with his friend Mr. Kenneth yielded only a single small bass, but Nathaniel had a few other hits in only a couple of hours, and he was really impressed with what he saw at Lake Russell. When most folks in North Georgia hear Lake Russel, they think first about Richard B. Russell Reservoir, which impounds the Savannah  River and spreads across more than 26,000 acres along the Georgia/South Carolina border. However, we have a much smaller Lake Russell that's located only about 5 miles from our house.

Our Lake Russell, which is located on a tract of the Chattahoochee National Forest, covers a little less than 100 acres. It has fairly clear water and forested banks and fishes like a big pond, producing bass, bluegills, crappie and catfish. Probably because only boats with electric motors are permitted and because lakes Lanier, Hartwell and Burton are all nearby, Russell doesn't get a lot of targeted pressure. It's supposed to be a good little fishing lake, and it really seems like I ought to be able to attest to that from first-hand experience. Despite having lived in Clarkesville for 16 years, I've actually only fished Lake Russell a couple of times.

Now that Nathaniel and I can load a small boat together, we might have to fix that and spend some time getting to know Lake Russell and some of the other smaller waters around here. I've not spent even spent a minute on Lake Seed, another small lake that's just up the road and that is supposed to have a good population of walleyes and some big trout in it.