# Anyone have any luck on Chandler Lake (Tribble Mill)



## Oddball (Oct 3, 2011)

Chandler is the smaller of the two lakes. I've been bank fishing there a few times this summer and some on the big lake (Ozora), but have had zero success and only seen one other person pull a fish out of Chandler. That was a small bluegill.  I see lots of small  fish under 4 or 5 inches, but nothing bigger. I've also noticed a few lilly pads in Chandler this summer. I hope they don't take it over like they have on Ozora. I keep reading of people catching big fish or large quantities, but I have yet to see it first hand. My brother in law said one of his neighbors caught over 50 Crappie in just a couple of hours one day on Chandler this past spring. I've also read that the lakes receive a lot of fishing pressure, but I rarely see more than 3 or 4 other people fishing on either lake.

Oh, by the way. I'm new here, Howdy!!


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## MrRipaLip (Oct 3, 2011)

Unless you have a boat you will not get many.  I was out there 2 weeks ago and threw frogs across the Lily pads. I had a few blow ups but nothing landed. That lake is too heavily weeded in my opinion. They need to clean it up.  I switched to a Carolina rig and fished some Senko baits wacky rigged and caught around a dozen. No real size.  There were around 4 or 5 other boats out there but I also have heard that it gets heavily fished.  Besides the pads overtaking the edges of this lake I did not find much structure at all to throw in.  I will try back in a week or two, but I dont think the topwater bite is on yet.


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## Todd71673 (Oct 3, 2011)

Welcome Oddball, I've fished out there a little bit this summer, just the big lake. Caught a couple of dinks on the edge of the lillies. Most guys catching out there are using very heavy line and jigging in the thick stuff. Its pretty much all the cover there is except the stumps in the shallows under the bridge. I tend to doubt a fisherman that claims big fish or big numbers out there, just way too much pressure, saw a group of guys throwing bait nets anywhere they could one day trying to catch anything that swam. I would have said something to them, para no habla. I really wish I could get a boat in the upper lake, I doubt it gets as much pressure.


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## Troutman3000 (Oct 3, 2011)

There have been some guys on here show nice fish from Tribble Mill.  Randall has caught some hosses on swinbaits.  I just think you have to get away from the bank beating mentality to find them there.  I have fished there a few times with the largest going about 3.5 pounds.  However, I cant catch large fish there consistently.


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## Oddball (Oct 4, 2011)

Thanks guys. I had a nice welded 16'x48" jon boat that I sold about 10 years ago. Bought the boat, trailer, marine battery and big trolling motor from a friend for $1500. I don't remember what thrust the trolling motor had, but it was pretty substantial. Spent another $400-500 on a small 4 cycle outboard and had a pretty nice set up. Spent a good bit of time on the lake at Stone Mountain. Then we bought a new house, out here near Tribble Mill, I got a promotion at work that entailed 12 - 16 hour days and sometimes time on the weekends. Between all the new house "honey-do" stuff and work I just didn't have time to fish and eventually lost interest in it and sold the boat. At the time I didn't realize Tribble Mill was just 5 or 6 miles up the road. I'd never heard of it or I'd have probably kept the boat. I didn't find out about Tribble Mill until about 4 years after we moved here. Anyway, now I'm just a landlubber again, though I was tempted to buy a canoe earlier this year. Now that I've been bitten by the fishing bug again, I may have to break down and buy one. I've seen a few kayaks on Chandler lake. If you can get a parking space near the trail over to it from the main road, its not much of a walk to the lake and it would be easy to put in right at the dam as you come up to the lake from the trail.


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## Cletus T. (Oct 4, 2011)

I haven’t fished TM in quite a while but I’ve actually had greater success in the top lake as opposed to the lower (bigger) one.  You can put a boat in there but you’ll have to walk it down and slide it in yourself.  I hooked one of the largest bass of my life in there (if it wasn’t 10-pounds….it wasn’t far off) but sadly she broke my line as she was lying in the shallows before I could get down to her.  This was in the back corner of the lake and it was during the spring time.  There are some BIG bass in there…..they are just tough to catch because of the pressure but like most waters…..if you time it up right and fish out there when the conditions are good you might be blown away with what you find on the end of your line!

I’ve always done good with green pumpkin plastics…..sweet beavers….lizards…..trick worms.  That big ole bass I talked about up above was hooked on a Mattlures Bluegill swimbait!

Good luck oddball and welcome to the forum!!!!!!


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## MrRipaLip (Oct 4, 2011)

Cletus, How far a walk is it to the waters edge on the upper lake of Tribble Mill?  roughly?


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## Old Dead River (Oct 4, 2011)

Cletus T. said:


> I haven’t fished TM in quite a while but I’ve actually had greater success in the top lake as opposed to the lower (bigger) one.  You can put a boat in there but you’ll have to walk it down and slide it in yourself.  I hooked one of the largest bass of my life in there (if it wasn’t 10-pounds….it wasn’t far off) but sadly she broke my line as she was lying in the shallows before I could get down to her.  This was in the back corner of the lake and it was during the spring time.  There are some BIG bass in there…..they are just tough to catch because of the pressure but like most waters…..if you time it up right and fish out there when the conditions are good you might be blown away with what you find on the end of your line!
> 
> I’ve always done good with green pumpkin plastics…..sweet beavers….lizards…..trick worms.  That big ole bass I talked about up above was hooked on a Mattlures Bluegill swimbait!
> 
> Good luck oddball and welcome to the forum!!!!!!



were you not fishing at least 20 lb test on such a high dollar swimbait??


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## Cletus T. (Oct 4, 2011)

MrRipaLip said:


> Cletus, How far a walk is it to the waters edge on the upper lake of Tribble Mill?  roughly?



I compare things in distance to football fields and I’d say if you could get one of the close parrell parking spots close to the trail that leads down to the lake it might be 80 yards or so!!!

Hope that helps!  


 Me and a buddy carried a small aluminum 10-ft jon boat down there with ease back in the day.  We did have to make two trips to haul the gear and trolling motor and battery and all that jive but it was well worth it on that day!!!!


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## Cletus T. (Oct 4, 2011)

Old Dead River said:


> were you not fishing at least 20 lb test on such a high dollar swimbait??



And to answer your question Ole Dead River….YES….I was using 25lb test triline big game line but it got the line tangled in a fallen pine tree and when I was a mere 8 inches from getting my hand on her she flopped and the line snapped where it was laying across the tree……I think about that fish everyday of my life!!!!


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## Brine (Oct 5, 2011)

Tribble used to be one of my favorite summer lakes simply because the grass bite was good all summer long. 

I guess all of the complaining got to someone that matters, because the grass is gone. I've been out a couple times in the past couple months and would rather not catch fish at Yargo than Tribble now.


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## Ricky (Oct 5, 2011)

Brine said:


> Tribble used to be one of my favorite summer lakes simply because the grass bite was good all summer long.
> 
> I guess all of the complaining got to someone that matters, because the grass is gone. I've been out a couple times in the past couple months and would rather not catch fish at Yargo than Tribble now.



They put a bunch of grass carp in both lakes.


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## Randall (Oct 5, 2011)

I used to catch plenty of good fish there with a big one here and there mixed in. It had a bunch of three and four pounders. What always made the lake great was the grass and the mix of fish. It was really much better when it just had pond weed and none of the weeds and pads that took over. There were a bunch of three to four pound fish in there with a good shot at a big one almost every trip. No reason for me to go back since I have not seen many big healthy bass from my freinds that fish there this year. Most have had stories like Brine or are catching big headed skinny fish from the photos I have seen. If I lived close I might fish it but it's probably not worth the drive for me anymore being almost two hours away.


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## Nugefan (Oct 6, 2011)

it gets fished hard ....


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## Oddball (Oct 6, 2011)

Randall said:


> I used to catch plenty of good fish there with a big one here and there mixed in. It had a bunch of three and four pounders. What always made the lake great was the grass and the mix of fish. It was really much better when it just had pond weed and none of the weeds and pads that took over. There were a bunch of three to four pound fish in there with a good shot at a big one almost every trip. No reason for me to go back since I have not seen many big healthy bass from my freinds that fish there this year. Most have had stories like Brine or are catching big headed skinny fish from the photos I have seen. If I lived close I might fish it but it's probably not worth the drive for me anymore being almost two hours away.



Yeah, if you're in Paulding County its not worth the 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive. There's got to be more productive lakes closer to you. I get to the Paulding courthouse every once in a while for work and its right at 75 miles from my house to the new courthouse facility. I'm about 2 miles from 20 in the middle of Grayson, so you'd probably be coming fairly close to my house on the way. It's be about 80 miles or more for you I reckon, if you live anywhere near Dallas.


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## Oddball (Oct 6, 2011)

I keep meaning to go to Yargo and wet a line, but just never seem to get there. I like TM, but I am about tired of not catching fish. I can do that while watching TV. I don't really care what I catch at this point. I'd just like to catch something. My wife went to the local park in Snellville the other day (Briscoe Park I think, off Lenora Church close to Henry Clower Blvd) to walk the dog and saw a guy fishing. I haven't been there often, but the few times I have, I always thought what a shame. The pond always just looks nasty and I figured there was no way it had any fish in it. She stopped and asked him if he'd had any luck and he said he'd just thrown back a small bass, maybe a pound and a half, and that the day before he had been there with a friend and his friend had caught a 19 lbs catfish. He had a picture of it on his phone. I guess there are fish in there after all.


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## stasher1 (Oct 7, 2011)

Oddball said:


> I keep meaning to go to Yargo and wet a line, but just never seem to get there. I like TM, but I am about tired of not catching fish. I can do that while watching TV. I don't really care what I catch at this point. I'd just like to catch something. My wife went to the local park in Snellville the other day (Briscoe Park I think, off Lenora Church close to Henry Clower Blvd) to walk the dog and saw a guy fishing. I haven't been there often, but the few times I have, I always thought what a shame. The pond always just looks nasty and I figured there was no way it had any fish in it. She stopped and asked him if he'd had any luck and he said he'd just thrown back a small bass, maybe a pound and a half, and that the day before he had been there with a friend and his friend had caught a 19 lbs catfish. He had a picture of it on his phone. I guess there are fish in there after all.



Both Briscoe and Lenora Park are very heavily fished, and the majority of the fish I've seen caught out of both lakes left the park(s) to become dinner for someone's family. 

I used to work in that area, and have fished both lakes quite a bit, but I've never caught anything worth mentioning. I've seen a few fairly large (~5 lb) bass cruising the shallows in Lenora, but that's about it.


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## Oddball (Oct 7, 2011)

WooHoo! Well, I said in my last post I was ready to catch anything, didn't matter what as long as I caught something and voila, today I get done with work early and head over to TM for about an hour and finally landed a small bass about 30 mintues after I got there. I just took a small fanny pack type bag with a few hooks and weights and a couple of frogs and some 6 inch shad jerkbaits. I parked at the service entrance off Chandler Rd. and walked down to Chandler Lake at the end where a small creek feeds in from under Chandler Road. Its kinda swampy at that end and I figured I'd throw a frog for a while, but had no luck, so I moved up the trail and changed to a jerkbait and fished along the bank toward a little cove. The wind was blowing toward me and I figured maybe it would be pushing any baitfish toward the shore and bass would follow. When I got to the cove my first cast had just barely hit the water when a small bass grabbed it. He wasn't but maybe a pound and no more than a foot long, but he was feisty and healthy looking. A few more casts into the cove proved futile so I moved on and made my way about a quarter of the way around the lake, almost straight across from the pier, before a birdsnest on my baitcaster hung me up. I picked the wrong day and the wrong side of the lake to try to fish with a baitcaster. Throwing into the wind had already produced a couple of light tangles that came out easy, but this one was a bear and I finally gave up and packed it in for the day. Funny, I was just bragging the other day on another thread here about baitcasters that I seemed to have a knack for them and had never had a severe backlash or many at all for that matter. Took me about a half hour once I got home to finally give up and cut all the line off the spool. Now I need to buy some more line to respool this reel. That's Karma I reckon. As soon as you start tooting your own horn, something usually happens to put you back in your place again. Hey, I'm OK with that though. At least I landed a healthy bass before it happened and I now know there are actually catchable fish in the lake.


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## Don McLendon (Apr 8, 2017)

I fished Chandler last week on Tuesday April 4th in my first trip in my Kayak I got one Bass on the left side of the lake on a ten inch dark blue plastic worm... about 3 1/2 pounds tho... put up a great fight... heard that there are still some big donkeys in there ... gonna keep trying... those lakes been there forever, no way that they are fished out


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## Don McLendon (Apr 8, 2017)

April 4th I took my new kayak on its first trip to Chandler ... caught a 3 1/2 pound bass that put up a great fight on the left side of the lake on a ten inch plastic worm... not naming any names but I know someone personally that has a big mule of a bass on his wall caught there... over fifteen pounds... I ain't giving up gonna keep pitching over there


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## needmotime2fish (Apr 10, 2017)

Never fished Chandler for bass. Before I sold my boat I caught a few small ones in the big lake.  But these days, I spend my fishing time chasing carp. Lots of fun, and no boat needed. 
I fished Chandler for several years, and caught several decent grass carp (all about 24 pounds), and three large catfish 14 lb, 17 lb and 24 lb -- all while fishing on the bottom for carp -- off the bank at the deep end, about halfway between the walk-in entrance and the overflow.
I've never caught anything small there -- but my success rate is low -- maybe one fish every half-dozen trips.  None of my last trips were successful -- maybe the grass carp have all died or were caught and eaten by the "meat fishermen" -- which could explain the increase in weeds and lily pads. Gwinnett County does stock grass carp in TM, but I don't know which of the two lake(s) have been stocked recently.
Talking to bass fishermen, I've learned that some of them do quite well by walking all the way around the lake, and casting various lures (mostly plastics). That's a lot of effort, but it might be what it takes to be successful.
Last time I was there, there was a (limited) access to the extreme upper end of Chandler Lake off Chandler Road, with a few parking spots in the dirt at the side of the road. I've never caught anything there, but it always looked promising.


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