Lake Hartwell Fishing Report – November 2007

Hartwell: Level: 9.9 feet below full pool. Temp: 72 degrees. Clarity: Clear.

Bass: Good. Hartwell bass fishing guide Josh Fowler, whose cable TV show, Fishing With Fowler, airs on the Hartwell cable, said it has been good in mid October for numbers of fish, but the bigger largemouths have gone missing. Josh and his partner won a pot tournament Oct. 13, with 11 pounds, but it took 18 pounds to win the same tournament a week earlier. “I have been catching a lot of spots and Coosa bass schooling on just about any main-lake point you want to pull up on,” he said. “I have been catching them — as well as stripers and hybrids — on a smaller Sammy. Yesterday I caught fish on a Rooster Tail, too.” When the fish go down, you can still catch them on a drop-shot rig, said Josh. “You can ease around and watch your depthfinder until you find them, then drop a drop-shot rig on them.” Josh uses a 1/4-oz. weight on his drop shot and hooks on either a Zoom Meathead worm or a Bass Pro Shops XPS drop-shot worm. Worm color doesn’t particularly matter, he said. “It’s a reaction bite when they see the worm fall past them,” he said. As the water cools, look for the bass to move back into the creeks. “That is probably where the largemouths are heading now,” he said. “By the end of November they will be schooling in the backs of the creeks, especially if there is a roadbed around.” Josh said the low water hasn’t had a noticeable impact on fishing, but it has made navigation a bit more dicey. “There is a lot of timber showing up, and a lot of humps that are coming out of the water.”

Linesides: Hit or miss, said Hartwell linesides guide Wayne White. “The lake is trying to turn over, and the fish are on the move and scattered. If you can find them, one day you’ll catch 40 — but the next day you might catch 7 or 8.” Wayne has been fishing bluebacks on downlines 40 to 60 feet deep over the river channels and catching mostly stripers running in the 6- to 10-lb. range. There has been some schooling activity on top, but the fish don’t stay up long, he said. “If we can get some cold weather and the lake will go ahead and turn over, the fishing should improve by the first week or two of November,” said Wayne.