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Lake Hartwell
Lake Hartwell is a 56,000-acre Corps of Engineers reservoir bordering Georgia and South Carolina on the Savannah, Tugaloo and Seneca rivers. Lake Hartwell is one of the southeast's largest and most popular recreation lakes, and it offers good fishing, particularly for bass and stripers. Three recent Bassmaster Classic tournaments have been held at Hartwell. The lake is created by Hartwell Dam located on the Savannah River 7 miles below the point where the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers join to form the Savannah. Interstate 85 crosses Lake Hartwell at the Georgia-South Carolina line.
Lake Hartwell Resources
Level: 0.5 over 660. Temp: 62-66 degrees. Clarity: Mostly clear with a little stain in the backs of some creeks. Bass: Ronnie Garrison fished the Potato Creek Bassmasters Tournament over the weekend and reports, “I saw many males preparing beds in Little Beaverdam Creek and the mouth of Reed Creek and a few females cruising them. The full moon this weekend should means lots of bedding bass. “The wind was bad Friday, the first day of our two-day April tournament. I caught five keeper largemouth on a shaky head fished slowly while working bedding flats back in coves. I had caught some 3-lb. spots from rocky humps and points on Wednesday and Thursday, but they did not hit early Friday morning, and the wind made them unfishable Friday afternoon. “Two 3-lb. largemouth helped me have 9.92 pounds. Raymond English had five bass at 14.26 pounds for first place, and Niles Murray…
Read MoreLake Hartwell Fishing Articles
If you look up the term “fishing addict” in the dictionary, you may notice a picture of Preston Harden in the margin. Preston loves to fish whether it is casting gold spoons for tailing redfish in the Louisiana bayous or flinging flies for trout in north Georgia or even hurling plugs for spotted bass on…
Mike Harris of Watkinsville dodged high wind on Hartwell May 12 to win his Round 4 Skeeter Eliminator Series match-up with Daryl Adams of Senoia. “You had to be on points that didn’t have real strong wind. The waves were so big on some that the fish couldn’t zero in very good,” said Mike. On…
March is unlike every other month of the year for bass anglers at Lake Hartwell. Fishing during the first half of the month is totally different than the second half. And to make things even more confusing, Lake Hartwell is unusually low, making most of the best places to catch fish in March inaccessible. But…
A few years ago, bass fishermen discovered an amazing summer pattern on some Georgia lakes. Bass would hit topwater baits worked over deep water on some of the brightest, hottest days of summer. Blueback herring were the key to that pattern, and Lake Hartwell is one of the best lakes in the state to catch…
The great thing about Rounds 4-6 of the Skeeter Eliminator Series is that GON editors ride along for all the tournaments. We take detailed notes and publish each angler’s diary about how they spend their seven hours on the water. The following pages contain diaries from the Round 5 Hartwell and Jackson tournaments. The Skeeter…
Lake Hartwell Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 12-lbs., 6.5-ozs. | Jack Breshears | 03/08/76 |
| Spotted Bass | 5-lbs., 6.08-ozs. | Raulie Bleech | 03/18/07 |
| Redeye Bass | 3-lbs., 7-ozs. | Steve Williams | 04/17/04 |
| Striped Bass | 59-lbs., 8-ozs. | Terry McConnell | 02/03/02 |
| Hybrid Bass | 20-lbs., 1-oz. | Buster Green | ----- |
| White Bass | 4-lbs., 5-ozs. | H.T. Davis | 02/06/67 |
| White Crappie | 4-lb., 4-ozs. | Charles McCullough | 04/27/68 |
| Black Crappie | 3-lbs., 1.76-ozs. | Jimmy Burns | 03/02/22 |
| Walleye | 9-lbs. | T.O. Sherriff | 1974 |
| Blue Catfish | 30-lbs., 8-ozs. | Melvin Wall | 06/26/03 |
| Flathead Catfish | 66-lbs. | Darrin Sealey | 04/04/10 |
| Shellcracker | 1-lb., 4.16-ozs. | DJ Hill | 05/13/23 |
| Chain Pickerel | 2-lbs., 5-ozs. | Jay Franklin | 03/16/23 |