Clarks Hill Lake Record Warmouth

Daniel Rawlins, 16, of Appling, was hoping for a Clarks Hill slab crappie when he was fishing on April 15, 2001. Instead, he ended up landing this 13-oz. warmouth that nailed his minnow. The new lake-record fish fills a previously empty category.

Clarks Hill Lake, is a reservoir at the border between Georgia and South Carolina in the Savannah River Basin. It was created by the J. Strom Thurmond Dam during 1951 and 1952 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near the confluence of the Little River and the Savannah River.

Although Daniel landed the warmouth record, the lake is known for its very good shellcracker fishing during the late spring spawn. At 71,000 acres, it is the third-largest artificial lake east of the Mississippi River, behind Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River and Lake Marion on the Santee River. The J. Strom Thurmond Dam is located upstream from Augusta. Clarks Hill is one of the southeast’s largest and most popular public recreation lakes.

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