Lake Allatoona Fishing Report – April 2025

Allatoona: Level: 4.5 feet below 840. Temp: 58-61 degrees. Clarity: Stained.

Bass: Tournament angler Matt Driver reports, “Allatoona is on fire this month. The month of April is when bass are in all phases of the spawn. Most of the largemouth will spawn this month. Some spotted bass began to spawn at the end of March. Red clay and pea-gravel banks have been the best areas to target for large spots. The majority of largemouth have moved shallow and are either close to spawning or staging nearby. The jerkbait, ChatterBait and squarebilled crankbait have been very productive. It’s hard to beat a shaky-head worm or Carolina-rigged lizard. There have been some phenomenal fish caught recently. This is the month you fish the way you like to fish. Pretty much all patterns will be successful. Make sure to take a kid fishing and enjoy the warm spring weather.”

Linesides: Guide Robert Eidson, of First Bite Guide Service, reports, “Lineside fishing is good and will only get better as we enter into the month. The hybrids have started their spawn runs up both the Etowah and Little rivers. Most of the fish that are being caught are prespawn. The river bite should stay decent into the middle of May. The main lake is also fishing well. The fish will start returning out of the rivers and will start to school from the Little River bridge up to the Delta and from the S-turns to Kellogg Creek. There is also a decent south-end bite going on right now from Iron Hill to the bay out in front of 3rd Army. The fish on the main lake are up in the water column and are very hard to mark on 2D sonar. If you have a Humminbird with side scan, you can locate these fish by running your side scan setting on 60 feet on both sides. This has been working great for me. If you don’t have side scan, the best way to find these fish is to put out a spread of planer boards and freelines and pull the banks and open water until you get bit. Planer boards and freelining live shad on the main lake has been our best bite and are a counting for 95 percent of our catch on both Lake Allatoona and Carters Lake. Small- to middle-sized gizzard shad and threadfins have been the ticket.”

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Crappie: Robert DeHaas, of Red Rooster Custom Baits and an OG from “Team Geezer,” reports, “April is known as the ‘Dogwood Month,’ and as the old saying goes, ‘If the dogwoods are blooming, you need to be crappie fishing!’ We couldn’t agree more. Once the April warming trends start, the Allatoona water temp heats up and the fish start transitioning to the shallow water and banks. You need to target any shallow structure, such as laydowns, stick-ups, brush, rocks and docks. This is prime time to break out the corks/bobbers with natural-colored jigs, minnows or jigs tipped with minnows. The trolling bite will be slowing down, but it can still be successful with a 1/32-oz. jig head pulled under a cork or small planer boards since the crappie are shallow and could be high in the water column in as little as 1 foot below the surface. April can be tough depending lingering cold fronts, wind and storms, but it should start to stabilize mid-April for some great shallow-water crappie fishing. Keep an eye on the water clarity to determine the best colors to use. If it is stained, we like to use a 1/32-oz. jig head with a Red Rooster Dagger (small 1.5-inch jig) in bright colors, such as ‘lectric chicken, cajun chicken, bluegrass or chartreuse pepper. If the water is clear, we typically use the Dagger in UV shad, UV melon, UV smoke, watermelon ghost or mayfly. Toward the end of the month, keep an eye on the shallow brush (8 to 12 feet) as the crappie start to transition from the spawning areas to the brush. Once the crappie recover from the spawn, you will want to start shooting docks, as well as a steady cast and retrieve in and around the docks from the banks to the corners of the docks. April should be a great month for crappie fishing on Lake Allatoona, as long as the weather holds and we don’t get a ton of rain that fills the lake with trash and debris. April is also the month when we will celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. April 20, 2025 is Easter Sunday when Jesus rose on the third day to defeat sin and death for all eternity, and we still believe that He is working all things to the good for those who love Him. John 11:25-26 says: ‘Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’’ We hope this report helps you and yours catch more crappie during the month of April. Good Lord willing we will provide another good report for May 2025. Good luck and God bless.”