Lake Record Allatoona Hybrid

Last Wednesday I was sitting at my desk going over a project GON has been working on for the past few weeks. We’re trying to compile a list of lake-record fish in Georgia for an upcoming issue. Then the phone rang and an excited fishing guide Mike Mobley said one of his clients, Danny Alsobrook, had landed a monster hybrid that morning on Lake Allatoona.

“How big is it?” I asked.

“Well, I think it may go over 15 pounds!” said Mike.

The banging Mike heard was me dropping the phone and leaping across my desk on my way to the lake. The biggest hybrid we had on record from Allatoona weighed 12-lbs., 8-ozs.

I met Mike and his clients Danny Alsobrook, of Dallas, and Todd Hunter, of Hiram, at the Blockhouse Ramp. Also meeting us was Mike Spencer, a Game and Fish Division fisheries biologist who was at Red Top Mountain State Park for a Fisheries Section meeting. Mike confirmed that the monster fish was indeed a hybrid. On certified scales, the hybrid weighed 13-lbs., 9.5-ozs.

Danny is going to have one heck-u-va taxidermist bill! He caught this 23 1/2-lb. striper to go along with his lake-record hybrid.

Danny said the fish hit about 9:30 in the morning in only 5 feet of water. Mike had about seven lines out under balloons, baited with gizzard and threadfin shad and a few trout. They were fishing the Allatoona Creek arm of the lake when the hybrid hit a trout when the lines passed over the shallow water of a point.

Danny had never caught a hybrid or striper of any size before, so he was tickled to death when they got the fish in the boat—and especially when he found out it was a new lake record.

Interestingly, Mike has employed a new technique that helps him fish plenty of rods at the same time without getting them tangled. He uses two “bait retrievers,” the long telescoping poles most fishermen use to retrieve hung lures. He clips the fishing line to a clothespin on the end of the pole, and like raising a flag, he extends the line to the end of the 15-foot pole and extends it over the side of his center-console Bay Hawk. This keeps the lines spread out behind the boat. The hybrid hit one of the lines attached to the make-shift “outrigger.”

Danny’s spectacular day of fishing didn’t end with the lake-record hybrid. Just before dark, he landed a 23 1/2-lb. striper that also hit a trout. Not a bad day on the Dead Sea!

Guide Mike Mobley (left) was almost as happy as Danny Alsobrook after Danny caught this 13-lb., 9.5-oz. hybrid, the new lake record for Allatoona.