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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: Full at 330. Temp: Low 70s. Clarity: Clear. Bass: David Earl Thorton, with Franklin Gun Shop in Athens, reports, “The herring bite is in full effect on the lower end of the lake. Spinnerbaits, flukes and topwater will get the job done. Fish them over shoals and shallow gravel points. Blow-throughs are especially good and wind helps. After that early bite, go to the bank and run shallow, shaded pockets with a Greenfish Toad Toter Buzzbait. Bream will bed around the full moon, making this shallow bite much better.” Clarks Hill Page: Archived Articles, Fishing Reports & Lake Records
Read MoreClarks Hill Lake Articles
Longer days have Clarks Hill bass stacking up in ditches near spawning areas and feeding heavily on flats near them. This is one of the best months of the year to catch numbers of bass and find a big prespawn female to brag about. No hindsight ip unit displayed. With 72,000 acres on the Savannah…
Georgia’s eastern flank offers some of the best freshwater fishing in the state, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) works to improve bass habitat at the Savannah River reservoirs. The USACE operates three major lakes along Georgia’s border with South Carolina: Lake Hartwell, Richard B. Russell Lake and Clarks Hill Lake. Administratively,…
Georgia has seen three state-record fish in the past four months. Could another record fish have been caught last week? We will never know because the angler chose to release a huge yellow perch that based on measurements would have been close to state-record proportions. Patrick McCorkell was fishing below the Thurmond Dam in the…
Pulling live blueback herring during a striper tournament paid off in more ways than one. The boat placed second in the Clarks Hill Striper Club tournament, and one of the anglers set a new lake record for spotted bass. Riley Hale was fishing with Capt. Ed Lepley and Kenny Brooks during the tournament this past…
Bass at Clarks Hill are on all three stages of the spawn in March. You can catch bass by targeting spawning areas, and you can catch them on a variety of baits. On the lower lake you are likely to have a mixed bag of spotted bass and largemouth, but up the Georgia Little River…
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 | 2-lb., 6-ozs. | Allen Fitzgerald | 04/24/25 |