Posts by Daryl Kirby
Fall Fiction: The Sanctuary Buck Part 2
The sounds outside, the rain and wind and rumble of thunder, could have been a thousand miles away. There was silence under here, except for the repetitive drip of a small rivulet of water that fell through an unseen crevice to the dank floor of the cave. Jack Elliot stood like an outside linebacker set…
Read MoreFab 40 Bucks Of The 2002 Georgia Deer Season
As deer seasons go, last year was just a tad out of whack. Throughout the fall, GON reported on lower numbers of deer being brought to the coolers, lower numbers of Truck-Buck entries, and hunters repeating the same themes… too wet, too hot, too many acorns — all excuses for why they weren’t seeing as…
Read MoreThe Sanctuary Buck
Like shooting fish in a barrel, only easier. Even this buck, a mature one from what he could see so far, didn’t seem to have a care in the world as it walked through the hard-wood bottom toward the creek, approaching steadily. Pathetic deer. Time to put a little fear of man back in ya,…
Read MoreLake Oconee Rice Fed Catfish
I met Jay Johnston, of Jackson, and his 3-year-old daughter Ashley at Lake Oconee’s Lawrence Shoals boat ramp at 7 a.m. on July 18. Jay’s boat was already sitting in the water, waiting on me to arrive. I could see the dam when I packed my gear inside his 16-foot jon boat. With the assistance…
Read MoreFishing Clayton County’s Lake Blalock
Just south of Atlanta, buried in 4,000 acres of hardwood bottoms and planted pines, sits an almost untouched piece of wilderness that is just slap loaded with deer, big Pope & Young- type deer that you can hunt. Did I forget to mention that the property also has two lakes on it that can be…
Read More15 Pound Georgia Bass Caught And Released
Switching to another lake wasn’t looking like the right call for the two anglers, who started the morning of June 29, 2002 fishing a small Dodge County lake and had caught about 25 bass between one and four pounds. Around 1 p.m. Brin Meredith of Atlanta and Hal Harris of Macon decided to try a…
Read MoreBonnie Harrison’s 160-inch Hall County Buck
As the 2001 Georgia deer season began, the landscape sure had changed along the Gwinnett and Hall County line where 70-year-old Bonnie Harrison had lived for more than 25 years. What was once sure-enough Georgia countryside — mostly small farms, pastureland, and woods — is now cut by huge neighborhoods, shopping centers, and busy roads…
Read MoreThe Drop-Shot Rig
Just when you thought bass anglers had run out of anything new in their bag of fish-catching tricks, along comes a technique that is producing bass like crazy and has money-fishermen scrambling to master its methods. The rig — a hook tied up the line with a weight at the bottom — is rather simple,…
Read MoreShort-Pocket Docks: Danny White Talks June Bassing On Lake Sinclair
Like an aging prom queen, as a reservoir matures it goes through changes… and some aren’t so pretty. Some are subtle and take years to impact fishing patterns. Other changes occur almost overnight. The anglers who know a lake best — that proverbial “like-the-back-of-your-hand” knowledge — are the ones who can catch fish when the…
Read MoreLake Russell Postspawn Bass
Intimidating, daunting, tough… all words that have been used to describe bass fishing on Lake Russell, usually by an angler who has never fished the timber-filled, clear water of the Savannah River reservoir. Beautiful, fishy-looking and awesome… words used by others to describe the bass fishing at Russell, especially during the postspawn period in May.…
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