Posts by Brad Bailey
Yellow Raincoat Booner
Thanksgiving Day of 1983 Jack Garrison, of Lithia Springs, was in Hahira visiting his parents on his grandmother’s 100-acre Lowndes County farm. A day earlier his dad had showed him a massive deer trail crossing a soybean field. A big water oak with limbs hanging down stood where the deer had been crossing a fence…
Read MoreCatch Rainbow Trout In Georgia Without The Crowds
Catching trout within sight of his truck just doesn’t appeal to Dale Thomas. Dale, a trout angler who lives in Clarkesville, prefers to fish streams that do not have a road running beside them, and he doesn’t mind having to hike to get to them. On May 11, Dale led GON-TV cameraman James Guthrie, my…
Read MoreTo Catch Blue Ridge Smallmouths
To the smallmouth, the small red jig darting just off the bottom of a rocky Lake Blue Ridge point must have looked like a crayfish or a yellow perch trying to escape. With a flick of its tail it surged forward and hit the jig. On the other end of the fishing line, sitting in…
Read MoreCoyote Attacks Tractor
On April 11, 2000, Tony Ashley, of Carrollton, was plowing a Heard County field when he noticed a coyote standing at the edge of the field. As the tractor passed the coyote, it ran out and chased the plow, biting the discs. The coyote stopped after 20 yards, and Tony continued around the field where…
Read MoreHartwell Linesides Quick Action In Spring
Lineside fishing guide Greg Beck snatched the rod from the rod holder and reared back to set the hook, but the fish was already gone. Before he could replace the rod, another planer board shuddered on the surface, then surged backwards, signaling a hit on the trailing blueback herring. Greg hurriedly set down the first…
Read MoreGobbler Hunt, Step By Step
Turkey hunting can be so easy. An hour into opening-day morning of the 1999 Georgia turkey season and Michael Mayfield was sitting with his back to a pine tree watching over his gun barrel as a longbeard strutted steadily toward him – and the bird was already in range. The tables, however, were about to…
Read MoreLake Chatuge Spooning Spots
Cameraman Eric Thornton had just focused the camera on me and Rick Wright as we stood in the front of Rick’s boat on Lake Chatuge to film an opening for the GON-TV segment on jigging spoons for bass. We both held fishing rods, and our spoons dangled 40 feet beneath the boat as I began:…
Read MoreDrop A Spoon For January Carters Lake Bass
Buddy Callahan says that bass fishing for Carters Lake spotted bass is a “challenge.” A lot of other fishermen who have spent time trying to catch a bass on this lake use much stronger language to describe the fishing. Bass fishing on this deep, clear-water lake is often cussed — even by the locals. The…
Read MoreGeorgia Snakebite Stories
Phillip Everette could hardly have picked a more remote location to have an encounter with a rattlesnake. On Saturday, June 20, 1998, Phillip was working on top of Pigeon Mountain in northwest Georgia. Phillip was the cattle foreman for the Rollins Farm (now Mountain Cove Properties), and he had just moved a herd of cattle…
Read MoreShooting Docks For Lake Lanier Crappie
Wyatt’s first slab of the day came on his third cast — or third shot, to be exact. We had pulled up to a covered dock along the Chattahoochee River near Clarks Bridge and he rifled a 1/32-oz. jig into the dark, back corner of the dock, splitting a 12-inch gap between the dock and…
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