Touring Rock Eagle Lake

Bubba Paulk holds up several of the bragging-size bream caught with the author on a recent trip to Rock Eagle Lake in Putnam County.

I’ve driven by Rock Eagle 4-H Center and its 110-acre lake hundreds of times but never fished there. I’ve always wondered how the fishing was, so I did a little research and found out there was very little information out there and almost no recent stories about fishing the lake. This article is an effort to correct that situation so that you might consider adding Rock Eagle Lake to a destination spot for you, especially since it’s a public lake with no charge to fish.

The lake was completed in 1936 and was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, back during the Depression years to get people back to work on public projects. According to Matt Hammons, 4-H Center Director, the lake serves as a tool for Rock Eagle’s 4-H education programs and is a popular spot for recreational fishing. An earthen dam holds back water from five feeder streams to create the lake. A concrete spillway is located on the southern end of the lake and functions to keep the lake at a constant depth. In heavy rains, excess water flows overtop the spillway and prevents the lake from flooding its banks.

Water leaving Rock Eagle Lake feeds into Little Glady Creek and flows through the Oconee National Forest. Little Glady Creek converges with Glady Creek and then empties into the Little River and ultimately into Lake Sinclair. From Lake Sinclair, the water flows into the Oconee River, the Altamaha River and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Hammons, the lake has never been drained, but the lake was lowered back in 2019 by 8 feet to allow some work to be completed on the dam. At least 10 feet of water remained in the lake, so no harm was done to the fish population.

On Monday, June 10, my good friend Bubba Paulk, of Cochran, and I loaded up my 17-foot Grumman aluminum boat and headed up from Warner Robins to fish Rock Eagle Lake. Bubba and his two sons, Casey and Matt, own and operate Paulk Landscaping of Cochran, and it’s one on the leading landscaping contractors in central Georgia. Bubba’s granddaughter Callie Paulk, a student at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, is working this summer as a counselor at Rock Eagle Summer Camp.

It was the first time either of us had fished in the lake, so we were attempting to use our basic knowledge of fishing and apply it to a new lake. We were willing to catch any fish that would bite, but we were targeting the bream and bass.

The lake has a single boat ramp, which was very adequate. As we launched, I saw that we were the only anglers on the entire lake. We were pleased with the natural woodland setting for the lake.

Here is the single-lane boat ramp beside a closed-down concession stand.

As we started fishing, we headed east, to the right side of the boat ramp, and started fishing around the abundant blowdowns and overhanging limbs. In short order, we started picking up a few small bream.

I had a bass rig set up with a Rattlin’ Rogue to try for bass. A few casts around good-looking cover along the shoreline didn’t get any takers. Bubba had a spinning rig with a 1/8-oz. Beetle Spin tied on, but the bass didn’t find it any more attractive than my jerkbait. Our main objective was to catch fish, so if the bream were willing to bite, we were ready to catch ’em.

I put on a red wiggler and cast my rig next to a submerged stump that was visible under the surface of the water. Just about as soon as the styrofoam cork settled down, it disappeared! The fish pulled pretty strong for a bream, and I actually thought it might be a bass. I had to play the fish carefully to keep it out of the limbs, and soon I saw a large shellcracker break the surface. OK, yeah, I like this lake!

I put it on the hand-held scale, and it weighed just over 1 pound. I was using a Zebco 33, 8-lb. line and a No. 6 bream hook. This very simple fishing rig proved to work.

With it being prime bream bedding time, we expected the fish to be a few feet out from the shoreline, and that’s where we found them. However, we never hit the jackpot on a heavy bedding area where every cast resulted in a hook-up. Instead, we pecked around the different pockets and shoreline structure. Bubba had a fly rod and light-action reel and used roll casts to get his small green water bug fly out 20 yards. He got a few bumps, but no takers on the fly, so he soon switched to a cork-and-worm rig but stayed with the fly outfit.

We latched onto mostly bluegill, a few small shellcracker and some redbreast. As we came out of a cove and hit the main-lake point, we brought several nice bream into the boat. We tried our bass rigs again but still no strikes. However, the day was getting hot. The deeper part of the lake, around old, submerged structure and around the small island in the center of the lake, should be good places for bass. We worked into the northeast cove and caught a few more bream, and by then, we really had all the fish we wanted. This trip was just an exploratory trip to learn about the lake, have fun and share good times.

The author (left) said he has driven by Rock Eagle 4-H Center and its 110-acre lake hundreds of times but never fished there. After his first visit produced this stringer of bream, he is now encouraging GON readers to consider a trip.

Another old friend, Charles Sloan, of Warner Robins, now fishing in heaven, loved to fish Rock Eagle Lake and often caught big, hand-sized bream and bass in the 1- to 5-lb. range, although stories are told of some 10-pounders pulled from the lake.

In addition to bream and bass, Hammons says the lake also has good populations of crappie and catfish. Although the lake has not been actively managed in the past, both Hammons and Keith Weaver, a WRD fisheries biologist who works with small public lakes to improve fishing, expressed a desire to study the fish in Rock Eagle Lake to see if improvements can be made in the fish populations. Hopefully in the future anglers may see the good fishing in the lake get even better.

According to Hammons, you can use any type boat on the lake, but the only source of propulsion must be your trolling motor or paddle. You are allowed to put a boat with a gas motor in the lake, but it cannot be used. Live bait (minnows) cannot be used, but live worms and crickets are fine. Fishing is allowed without charge from sunrise to sunset 365 days a year, but the lake may be closed for special events, but those occasions are rare. No night fishing or camping is allowed. Also, fishing with jugs or trotlines is prohibited, and there are no public restroom facilities. No alcoholic beverages are allowed, and anglers are prohibited from accessing the walkway bridges or 4-H camp areas.

To reach Rock Eagle Lake at 350 Rock Eagle Road NW, Eatonton, GA 31024, proceed 9 miles north of Eatonton. On the left you will see a large, rectangular, stone sign which reads, “University of Georgia, Cooperative Extension Service, Rock Eagle 4-H Center.” Turn left and drive for about one-half mile to the first road to the right, where a sign says “Rock Eagle Effigy.” Drive about one-half mile until you see the lake and the boat ramp and old concession booth.

Bubba and I caught about 25 bream in a morning’s effort, with 10 of those being hand-sized or bigger, so we were pleased with our first attempt at fishing the lake. I encourage you to give this park-like lake a serious look for your next fishing adventure.