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Clarks Hill Lake
Lake Strom Thurmond, known by most Georgia fishermen as 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. Fishing for largemouth bass and striped bass in particularly popular at Clarks Hill, and the lake also offers very good shellcracker fishing during the late spring spawn, and there are some giant catfish in the lake. Crappie fishing can also be very good on Clarks Hill. 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.
Clarks Hill Lake Resources
Clarks Hill: Level: 3.1 feet below 330. Temp: Low 50s. Clarity: Clear. Bass: David Earl Thorton, with Franklins, reports that bass will be in or near ditches. “Also check channel swings,” David said. “As we move into February, look for the bass to move back in the creeks and coves. They will be feeding up on the flats early. Try a Spot Choker and a Zoom Fluke Jr. in the ditches. Also, a Greenfish Bad Little Shad head and a 2.8-inch swimbait will get you bit. On a bright, sunny day, throw Shad Rap and Stray Dog crankbait on rocky banks. Keep a Greenfish jig ready for any wood or blowdowns for a big bite. Clarks Hill Page: Archived Articles, Fishing Reports & Lake Records
Read MoreClarks Hill Lake Articles
A Bandit 200 and a 1/2-oz. Rat-L-Trap fished in dirty water in Georgia’s Little River was exactly how Tony Green became this year’s Georgia Bass Chapter Federation (GBCF) Top-Six state champion. Tony weighed in 30.40 pounds of Clarks Hill bass for the March 10-11 tournament, where the top-six anglers from 73 GBCF-affiliated bass clubs converged…
The day was absolutely beautiful. Blue, cloudless skies, no wind, and a high of about 80 degrees. It was Dec. 10, and an unseasonable warm spell had hit the Southeast driving temperatures far higher than their normal. As a result, the water temperature was also on the rise, so the typical winter striper pattern was…
“Year-round, there are fish in this hole,” said Clifford Swygert, who was keeping track of eight rod tips, his depthfinder and his GPS as we slow-trolled over a deep area far up Little River on the South Carolina side of Clarks Hill Lake. “There’s one bumping it,” he said, nodding toward a 12-foot rod off…
The never-ending heat wave was back. With temperatures tickling triple digits and not a cloud in the sky, eight hours on the deck of a boat had Clarks Hill feeling a little like Clarks H-E- you-know-where. However, two key variables turned less-than-ideal fishing conditions into a pretty good day on Georgia’s largest lake. First, a…
Ask a man to produce a 16-lb. bag of largemouths on any given tournament day and he may be able to do it; ask him to do it again and the odds go way down. Patrick Brown from Swainsboro weighed in another 16-pound-plus bag of Eliminator Series bass. On April 10, he won his Round…
Clarks Hill Lake Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 14-lbs., 14-ozs. | Carl Sasser | 02/16/72 |
| Spotted Bass | 5-lbs., 7.2-ozs. | Tanner Hadden | 04/23/2404/23/24 |
| White Bass | 3-lbs., 9-ozs. | Ed Lepley | 03/09/15 |
| Striped Bass | 55-lbs., 12-ozs. | Sam Porter | 05/27/93 |
| Hybrid Bass | 16-lbs., 12-ozs. | Jim Hankinson | ----- |
| Black Crappie | 4-lbs., 8-ozs. | Dewey Marks | 1979 |
| White Crappie | 4-lbs., 12-ozs. | Weldon Clark | 03/30/06 |
| Blue Catfish | 72-lbs., 3-ozs. | Walker Crowe | 05/07/24 |
| Flathead Catfish | 70-lbs. | Michael Dollar | 03/04/23 |
| Channel Catfish | 25-lbs., 2-ozs. | James Gunn | 05/13/93 |
| Yellow Perch | 2-lbs., 8-ozs. | Brad Murphy | 12/89 |
| Sauger | 4-lbs., 3-ozs. | Stuart Bowers | 04/05/86 |
| Warmouth | 13-ozs. | Daniel Rawlins | 04/15/01 |
| White Perch | 1-lb., 4-ozs. | Dennis Franklin | 02/22/15 |
| Shellcracker | 1-lb., 9-ozs. | Kathleen Weeks | 06/23/11 |