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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: 64-70 degrees. Clarity: Slightly stained to clear. Bass: D.J. Hadden, with Hadden Outdoors, says to “scope, scope, scope.” D.J.’s son, Tanner, wins many tournaments, including the recent Super 6 Championship with his uncle. Tanner also won the Gerald Jones Tournament with partner Caleb Hudson. Tanner is an expert with FFS and does guide trips where he will teach you. FFS is not some magic tool. It will help you catch fish, but you must learn to use it. “Water temperatures started to cool the week before Thanksgiving and will drop fast in December,” D.J. said. “That means bait will move back in the pockets and creeks. There will be an early morning ditch bite, and surface activity should be seen early in the month. If you’re not scoping, cast a Spot Choker underspin with a 2.8 or 3.3 Keitech early to bait…
Read MoreClarks Hill Lake Articles
For the May 14, 2005 Easter Seals tournament at Clarks Hill Lake, catching big sacks of largemouths compliments of the blueback-herring spawn was hit or miss. For those who found schooling activity, they had to weed through the hybrids and stripers to fill their livewell with largemouths. By 1 p.m., the team of Dale Gibbs…
It took about 30 phone calls before I finally began to tap into a few folks who backed a boat into the gin-clear waters of Clarks Hill with the sole purpose of trying to hook into a flathead catfish. The flathead makes its most famous Georgia home in the Altamaha River, where it’s known for…
If you like fishing shallow water for bass, there is an unusual condition at Clarks Hill this year that you should love. The lake level was low for several years, and now there is a lot of dead grass under water. This month the bass will be in that grass feeding and getting ready to spawn. You can catch a lot of bass shallow this…
During some August days, Clarks Hill’s 72,000 acres of water seem devoid of bass. The heat shimmering off the water makes you miserable, and catching a bass to improve your mood seems impossible. But, if you wait until late afternoon and nighttime to fish, you will be more comfortable and the bass will magically appear…
Bass fishermen look forward to the month of April like toddlers wait for Christmas. Good things happen in April for fishermen, and Clarks Hill is just about the best lake in the state to take advantage of those good things. If you like catching bass in shallow water, now is the time and Clarks Hill…
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 |