Lake Allatoona Fishing Report – December 2020

Allatoona: Level: 5.6 feet low. Temp: 63 degrees. Clarity: Stained.

Bass: Tournament angler Matt Driver reports, “Fishing on Allatoona is great with lots of shallow fish and several good largemouth coming to the tournament scales. I believe we will have milder weather this winter, and we should stay consistent throughout December. From now until spring is a great time to catch a trophy spot. Jerkbaits, jigs, shallow-to-medium running crankbaits and swimbaits will be your best bets. The Jackall Squirrel DD and Vision OneTen jerkbaits are my go-to. Run and gun primary and secondary points the first part of the month, and then transition to bluff walls as temps drop. Use a 7-foot medium-action Shimano Expride rod with 8-lb. Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon. For the jig, I like to use a 1/4-oz. Picasso football head in brown and orange tipped with a Zoom Twin Tail grub. Fish it slow. Blowdowns and bluff walls mid-lake are most productive. For the crankbait, I like the Strike King 3XD and a Spro Little John to target creeks this time of year, but I will transition to the main lake as temps drop. For swimbaits, keep it simple with a Picasso roundball tungsten swimbait head and a 4-inch Keitech Easy Shiner swimbait in shad colors. Location matters more than color to me. Look to your electronics to locate schools of feeding bass. As temperatures drop, hypothermia is real. Don’t fish alone. Merry Christmas!”

Linesides: Guide Robert Eidson reports, “The bite on Allatoona is starting to pick up. The north end of the lake from Little River to Fields Landing is holding a ton of white bass and a few decent stripers right now. The white bass will hit a 1/2-oz. spoon, Roostertail, Tiny Fluke and a small threadfin shad. The bigger striper are wanting to eat big. Your best bet for a big fish right now is to pull bigger baits like a large gizzard shad as my first choice, followed by a trout. The big schools of smaller hybrids are starting to show back up on the main lake. I have found some really big schools of hybrids in Kellogg Creek all the way south to Clear Creek. These fish are eating threadfin shad, small gizzard shad and small trout fished on downlines 18 to 32 feet deep. The water temp is getting right and should be prime by the first of December. If you troll, keep pulling your Captain Mack’s u-rigs 120 feet behind the boat at speeds between 2.4 to 3.1 mph. This is my favorite time of the year to be on the water.”