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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: 0.6 feet above 330. Temp: 60 to 70 degrees. Clarity: Georgia Little River is stained to Raysville Bridge and then gets muddy going upstream. All major creeks on the Savannah River are stained to muddy, as is the river from Parksville north to the Russell Dam. The lower lake is clearer. Bass: D.J. Hadden, with Hadden Outdoors, says that April is typically one of the best months of the year on Clarks Hill. Fish will be in all stages of the spawn, and many patterns will work. Herring will also start to spawn, so that means get out a Zoom Super Fluke, Spro Sashimmy and a walking topwater bait. Fish blow-throughs and long, flat, clay points on the lower end of the lake for this pattern. If you are not fishing the shad/herring spawn, target spawning pockets and flats with a buzzbait, spinnerbait, floating worm and swimbait. Cover…
Read MoreClarks Hill Lake Articles
Somehow, somewhere along the line, the whole video game thing managed to pass me by. Guess there were better things to do with my metacarpus at the time. Making a living, for example. But after a day on Clarks Hill Lake looking for—and AT—bunches of crappie with Troy Thiel, I could easily find myself working…
Boater Joshua Rockefeller, of Harlem, brought a two-day total of nine bass to the scale weighing 21 pounds even to win the Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine South Carolina Division Super-Tournament at Clarks Hill Lake. For his victory, Rockefeller earned $4,668. “I caught them frogging,” says Rockefeller, who earned his first career Bass Fishing League…
A flathead catfish weighing 88 pounds on certified scales was recently caught from Clarks Hill Lake by Blake White, of Keysville. The fish was caught on a bush hook and can’t be recognized as either a state or lake record. However, it’s a giant fish that GON is excited to share. “I told my wife…
Clarks Hill bass are eating up the last of the herring spawn as they transition to their summer holes, but bass are still going back up shallow to feed around bream beds, too. In both cases you can catch Clarks Hill bass on a variety of baits this month, with five-fish 15-lb. stringers common. Clarks…
Evergreen trees aren’t typically considered aquatic vegetation, but if they’re used as Christmas trees in the Savannah River Basin, chances are they’ll continue “bearing fruit” under water. Rather than have old Christmas trees go to the landfill, rangers with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs at Hartwell and J. Strom Thurmond (Clarks Hill)…
Clarks Hill Lake Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 14-lbs., 14-ozs. | Carl Sasser | 02/16/72 |
| Spotted Bass | 4-lbs., 11.8-ozs. | Riley Hale | 03/19/22 |
| 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 | 62-lbs. | Ralph Barbee Jr. | 09/12/79 |
| 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 |