# Clarks Hill Lake



## lancek742 (Jan 13, 2016)

Anyone been hunting Clarks Hill and if so, How's the hunting been. Thinking about a few different spots for this weekend. Let me know how the hunting has been there. Not looking for information or location of your secret holes just trying to see how the hunting has been there. Thanks


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## GADawg08 (Jan 13, 2016)

lancek742 said:


> Anyone been hunting Clarks Hill and if so, How's the hunting been. Thinking about a few different spots for this weekend. Let me know how the hunting has been there. Not looking for information or location of your secret holes just trying to see how the hunting has been there. Thanks




yet, you ask how the hunting has been?  I'm a lot nicer than some guys on here so I'll just leave it at that


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## Souhternhunter17 (Jan 13, 2016)

Loaded with mergs better kill em while they are there. I'll see you at the boat ramp!!!


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## lancek742 (Jan 13, 2016)

GADawg08 said:


> yet, you ask how the hunting has been?  I'm a lot nicer than some guys on here so I'll just leave it at that



Not looking for any information as far as specific areas or locations. Just seeing how the hunting has been.


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## lancek742 (Jan 13, 2016)

Souhternhunter17 said:


> Loaded with mergs better kill em while they are there. I'll see you at the boat ramp!!!



I will be out there somewhere. Going to scout a couple areas tomorrow and Friday


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## jritchey65 (Jan 13, 2016)

Thinking about riding out there myself this weekend.  Just gonna hope I can find something.  Its about a 2.5/3 hour ride for me.


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## rnelson5 (Jan 13, 2016)

jritchey65 said:


> Thinking about riding out there myself this weekend.  Just gonna hope I can find something.  Its about a 2.5/3 hour ride for me.



There is NO way I would drive 3 hours to hunt The Hill... I live 20 minutes away and have not been one time this season if that tells you anything.

To the OP, the water is extremely high and what birds are there get run up and shot at on a daily basis. If you live several hours away I would suggest going in a different direction. Keep in mind, I have nothing to lose or gain by you coming or not.........


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## rnelson5 (Jan 13, 2016)

GADawg08 said:


> yet, you ask how the hunting has been?  I'm a lot nicer than some guys on here so I'll just leave it at that



Not looking for info, just want info on how the hunting has been


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## lancek742 (Jan 13, 2016)

Thank you for the " info" for those that have been helpful. To everyone else. You know what you can do with your comments.


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## NCHillbilly (Jan 13, 2016)

Last time I was down there a few weeks ago, you could duck hunt out in the road and up in the woods or out of your tree stand all around there.


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## turkeyslayer14 (Jan 13, 2016)

Souhternhunter17 said:


> Loaded with mergs better kill em while they are there. I'll see you at the boat ramp!!!


  Some may not be a fan of shooting mergansers but I will happily do my part in controlling the state merganser population. Contrary to popular belief, they eat very well!!


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## jritchey65 (Jan 13, 2016)

rnelson5 said:


> There is NO way I would drive 3 hours to hunt The Hill... I live 20 minutes away and have not been one time this season if that tells you anything.
> 
> To the OP, the water is extremely high and what birds are there get run up and shot at on a daily basis. If you live several hours away I would suggest going in a different direction. Keep in mind, I have nothing to lose or gain by you coming or not.........



This is exactly the information that I needed without even asking.  Thank you rnelson5!


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## sasmojoe (Jan 13, 2016)

Come on over and get in line with the other knuckleheads that are running up ducks with their boats and shooting. 
I live on the lake and I hear shots all during the day and some even past shooting times in afternoon.


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## across the river (Jan 13, 2016)

rnelson5 said:


> There is NO way I would drive 3 hours to hunt The Hill... I live 20 minutes away and have not been one time this season if that tells you anything.
> 
> To the OP, the water is extremely high and what birds are there get run up and shot at on a daily basis. If you live several hours away I would suggest going in a different direction. Keep in mind, I have nothing to lose or gain by you coming or not.........



That is the problem right there.  A few weeks ago I was talking to a guy who was complaining that he had ridden all over the lake and only seen a "couple" of ducks.   He said that the weather was terrible, and we needed some cold weather to bring them down.  I then told him birds where here and that I could show him a handful of ponds within an hour of the Clark's Hill that had hundreds of birds on them and all were 1/10 of a percent the size of the lake.  He looked at me dumbfounded, and thought I was lying to him.  He like most people, didn't get the fact that birds imprint on a place. If they have a while to sit down and rest their wings for a while before getting shot at or run up, then they can imprint and come back the next year. If they don't get there feet wet before someone run them up shooting at them from a boat, they move on to somewhere else they don't get bothered. Most times this is private land.  After years of this, you end up only getting a few stragglers on the lake that happen to stop by as the are flying to somewhere else.   This is why IMO public land duck hunting in Georgia has and will continue to go down hill, and private land hunting will continue to improve.  The days of consistently seeing groups of hundreds or even thousands of ducks on public water in Georgia are long gone.  They are all sitting on someone's private place where they actually get to hang out and imprint at least a few days before someone shoots at them.  That means they are going to fly straight there the following year and the year after that.   Meanwhile your public water gets less and less birds every year.   If you don't have private water to hunt in Georgia, either find some, or just make a few trips out of state every year.  Other wise you are going to spend a lot of time and a lot money chasing fewer and fewer birds.


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## MrDuckKiller (Jan 13, 2016)

Don't waste your time, more hunters than ducks!


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## duckyaker90 (Jan 13, 2016)

Think I'd rather crappie or striper fish brotha. Public land duck hunting just ain't my thang anymore. As far as clarks hill. I'm not spending the night for a duck or two in Georgia. That's what it has become. Miss those days where you barely had enough time to make a blind and get you decoys out b4 LST and never see another duck boat. NOW hah nah you can have it.


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## Woodsedgefarm (Jan 14, 2016)

It's funny when I brought up a noon cut off and then benefits everyone came unglued. Now everyone is complaining about what is going on, the exact problems I was trying to solve.


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## buzzbaithead57 (Jan 14, 2016)

Woodsedgefarm said:


> It's funny when I brought up a noon cut off and then benefits everyone came unglued. Now everyone is complaining about what is going on, the exact problems I was trying to solve.


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## king killer delete (Jan 14, 2016)

I will hunt several afternoons this year. Oh by the way Clarks Hill has not changed. I hunted the first time in 1983 and not much has changed except we have 10 times the numbers of duck hunters.


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## buzzbaithead57 (Jan 14, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> I will hunt several afternoons this year. Oh by the way Clarks Hill has not changed. I hunted the first time in 1983 and not much has changed except we have 10 times the numbers of duck hunters.



Me too Killer, my 2 best hunts this year were afternoon hunts. It was nice. Nobody else on the lake, no wasted time waiting for daylight, no competing for spots, and back to the ramp and road ready before dark.


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## king killer delete (Jan 14, 2016)

Woodsedgefarm said:


> It's funny when I brought up a noon cut off and then benefits everyone came unglued. Now everyone is complaining about what is going on, the exact problems I was trying to solve.


I very seldom hunt afternoons and if I do it will be on salt water. You can set the example by never hunting afternoons and influence the folks you hunt with to do the same.  This is a good start on a grass roots movement. Good luck!


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## king killer delete (Jan 14, 2016)

Back in the day when I pulled my camoed v Bottom boat to Clarks Hill I would get funny looks because very few folks duck hunted it.


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## across the river (Jan 14, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> I will hunt several afternoons this year. Oh by the way Clarks Hill has not changed.I hunted the first time in 1983 and not much has changed except we have 10 times the numbers of duck hunters.



It has changed a ton. It isn't anything like it used to be.   Twenty years ago you hardly saw anybody else hunting it.  There were only a few areas that held any grass, so the birds would concentrated there.   We used to slay the divers, and I have killed plenty of limits of bigs ducks there back inn the day.  There are also WAY more than 10 times the number of duck hunters there were back then.  At the boat ramp we used to typically put in, we would only ever see one other boat there duck hunting, and it was some guys that would drive in every weekend from Atlanta.  They were nice guys we got to know, and we would even tell them where to go based on what we had seen during the week during the week. We would helped them out, and they would keep their mouth shut.  You go to that same boat ramp now and there will be people parked every where.  Today you tell someone where to go, they run their mouth or post something on the internet and all of their buddies will be sitting there the next weekend.   It was different, way different.   There is no doubt about that.


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## king killer delete (Jan 14, 2016)

across the river said:


> It has changed a ton. It isn't anything like it used to be.   Twenty years ago you hardly saw anybody else hunting it.  There were only a few areas that held any grass, so the birds would concentrated there.   We used to slay the divers, and I have killed plenty of limits of bigs ducks there back inn the day.  There are also WAY more than 10 times the number of duck hunters there were back then.  At the boat ramp we used to typically put in, we would only ever see one other boat there duck hunting, and it was some guys that would drive in every weekend from Atlanta.  They were nice guys we got to know, and we would even tell them where to go based on what we had seen during the week during the week. We would helped them out, and they would keep their mouth shut.  You go to that same boat ramp now and there will be people parked every where.  Today you tell someone where to go, they run their mouth or post something on the internet and all of their buddies will be sitting there the next weekend.   It was different, way different.   There is no doubt about that.


I understand it has become diver city. Back in my day on the Hill we shot Mallards and allot of them.


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## across the river (Jan 14, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> I understand it has become diver city. Back in my day on the Hill we shot Mallards and allot of them.



I wouldn't call it diver city, at least not anymore.  It still gets a few here and there, but they get run and gunned so much, the big numbers don't hang around like they used to.  There were still quite a  few mallards there in the 90's.  They weren't there all the time, but there were quite few times when  4 or 5 of use would limit out on green heads.  It wasn't really uncommon at all to get on other puddle ducks either.   I used to have some pictures I will have to see if I can dig up of mallards lined up that came off of that lake.  If you showed those pictures to people today, most people probably wouldn't believe they were killed in Georgia, especially on public water.  It is definitely different now a days.  People camping out all night, driving two and three hours sight unseen to hunt a lake there just aren't typically that many birds on anymore.


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## king killer delete (Jan 14, 2016)

across the river said:


> I wouldn't call it diver city, at least not anymore.  It still gets a few here and there, but they get run and gunned so much, the big numbers don't hang around like they used to.  There were still quite a  few mallards there in the 90's.  They weren't there all the time, but there were quite few times when  4 or 5 of use would limit out on green heads.  It wasn't really uncommon at all to get on other puddle ducks either.   I used to have some pictures I will have to see if I can dig up of mallards lined up that came off of that lake.  If you showed those pictures to people today, most people probably wouldn't believe they were killed in Georgia, especially on public water.  It is definitely different now a days.  People camping out all night, driving two and three hours sight unseen to hunt a lake there just aren't typically that many birds on anymore.


I hate to hear this I had some great hunts on the lake and I killed the Canadas back in the day.


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## krazybronco2 (Jan 14, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> I understand it has become diver city. Back in my day on the Hill we shot Mallards and allot of them.



my dad can attest to that you meet him on the epic goose hunt but a lot has changed in the last decade. the amount of hunters in the largest change. i have old hunting buddies (since i was knee hight to a grass hopper) that no longer hunt there because of the pressure. second is the hydrilla is has really taken over the lake. and the last is either the lack of water or to much water the corp of engineers has to keep a certain amount of water running down the river for two reasons one is so the corp can make a little electricity and the second is to keep 2 nuclear reactors south of the dam cooled.

but to the OP i have looked at some private ponds close to the hill and they are lacking birds compared to what they normally have at this time of the year. even the coot numbers that are normally around little river bridge is lower than normal.


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## wesley thomas (Jan 14, 2016)

thats where i cut my teeth duck hunting and the savannah river,and phinizy now days i dont even hunt there anymore people will shoot all day ride allday and shoot the same hole every weekend of the season then complain all the while how the ducks arent there you have to give them a break to feed up and do there thing let more birds gather up why people cant understand that i will never know and thats why i only hunt private land me and a few buddys rotate our spots shooting each spot a couple times a year oh and alot of hunters on public land dont understand the meaning of ethics if you see a spread of decoys back out go somewhere else but instead theyll sit in your lab and skyblast every group of birds that come thru wont even try to work them in to a spread ok rant over if you go best of luck try to find somewhere secluded or extreamly hard to get to with birds and you might be ok but when you find it better keep it to yourself if not everybody within a 200 mile radius will be in there


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## tradhunter98 (Jan 14, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> I will hunt several afternoons this year. Oh by the way Clarks Hill has not changed. I hunted the first time in 1983 and not much has changed except we have 10 times the numbers of duck hunters.



Yup and if the duck hunters didn't keep all the birds run off it'd be a decent place to hunt. So things aren't like they used to be.


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## rnelson5 (Jan 15, 2016)

I got asked last night to go this morning...... That would be a negative. I hope they kill them, but the place just is not worth it to me.


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## GADawg08 (Jan 15, 2016)

my wife's family has a lake house on the Hill.....Call me crazy, but I see almost as many ducks and geese there during the summer than I do the few times I hunt it each year. Can't tell you how many times we've been getting on the boat and have mallards light 30 yds from us


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## rnelson5 (Jan 15, 2016)

GADawg08 said:


> my wife's family has a lake house on the Hill.....Call me crazy, but I see almost as many ducks and geese there during the summer than I do the few times I hunt it each year. Can't tell you how many times we've been getting on the boat and have mallards light 30 yds from us



The best time to see ducks at the Hill is March.


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## king killer delete (Jan 15, 2016)

rnelson5 said:


> The best time to see ducks at the Hill is March.


You just dont want anybody in your spot


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## rnelson5 (Jan 15, 2016)

king killer delete said:


> You just dont want anybody in your spot



Killer you know better than that lol. I can count the number of times i have hunted the Hill on one hand in the last 6 years.


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