Advertisement
Lake Lanier
Lake Lanier is a very popular reservoir in north Georgia for anglers and recreational boaters. It was created by the completion of Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River in 1956, and is also fed by the waters of the Chestatee and Chattahoochee rivers. The lake encompasses 38,000 acres, or 59 square miles of water, and 692 miles of shoreline at normal level, which is at full summer pool of 1,071 feet above sea level. Lake Lanier boasts some of the best striped bass and spotted bass fishing in the country.
Lake Lanier Resources
Due to cooler water temperatures than normal, Lake Lanier is behind schedule still with regard to the typical summer bite, according to Jimbo Mathley, of Jimbo’s Spotted Bass Guide Service. In fact, he’s seeing some things in mid-June that he’s never seen before. “I’m actually seeing herring and other baitfish spawning,” Jimbo told GON. “I can’t remember when I’ve seen that at this point in June.” According to Jimbo, flexibility is key right now to catching Lake Lanier bass. With the lake still behind, rising temperatures and rainfall, folks aiming to land spotted bass and largemouth on Lanier need to be willing to move around. That means trying different depths and locations. The fish aren’t as aggressive as they normally are this time of year, but topwater is still the move. Below are the topwater baits you should lean on, per Jimbo. As a general rule of thumb, for now,…
Read MoreLake Lanier Articles
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Mobile District has received 16 hiring freeze exemptions to bring on additional Park Rangers to support public recreation sites across the region. The exemptions include six positions at Lake Lanier, two at Walter F. George (Lake Eufaula), two at the Black Warrior and Tombigbee Rive Lakes, and six…
State championships in Georgia high school sports bring pride and prestige to local communities and towns. The 2025 Georgia bass fishing state championship crown will reside in the city of Evans in Columbia County, as a team from Greenbrier High School took the win. The 2025 GHSA Bass Fishing State Championship, presented by Alfa Insurance,…
Taylor Cronan, 10, of Pendergrass, is the new Lake Lanier record holder for the common carp. She caught a 22-lb., 0.2-oz. fish on April 26 and had it weighed on certified scales and verified by a WRD biologist. She was fishing from the bank in the Gainesville area with her dad, mom, sister and a…
Cooper McDonald, a 17-year-old junior at Lumpkin County High School, caught a five-bass limit weighing 21-lbs., 14-ozs. Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine at Lake Lanier. The March 1 tournament was the first event of the season for the 2025 BFL Bulldog Division. Cooper earned $3,963 for…
For Buford’s Tyler Kesselring, it was a fishing tournament outcome that he wasn’t necessarily expecting. Fishing in the Lake Lanier Catfish Challenge, he went to the scales at 2 a.m. with a winning weight of 40 pounds. In his catch was a new Lake Lanier record blue catfish that tipped the scales at 19-lbs., 5.5-ozs.…
Lake Lanier Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 17-lbs., 9-ozs. | Emory Dunahoo | 12/19/65 |
| Spotted Bass | 8-lbs., 0.5-ozs. | Patrick Bankston | 05/20/85 |
| Striped Bass | 47-lbs., 12-ozs. | Ward Schanhals | 04/03/10 |
| Hybrid Bass | 12-lbs. | Fred Duncan | 12/22/92 |
| White Bass | 5-lbs., 1-oz.* | J.M. Hobbins | 06/16/71 |
| Shoal Bass | 5-lbs., 5-ozs. | Peter T. Thliveros | 12/01/94 |
| White Crappie | 3-lbs., 2-ozs. | Bill Fretwell | 04/17/91 |
| Black Crappie | 3-lbs., 5-ozs. | Chris Williams | 10/06/06 |
| Walleye | 8-lbs., 9-ozs. | Buddy Wade | 01/20/13 |
| Bluegill | 1-lb., 2-ozs. | Mrs. Pat Johnson | 06/03/79 |
| Yellow Perch | 1-lb., 8-ozs. | Jeff Howard | 02/02/90 |
| Shellcracker | 1-lb., 9.44-ozs. | Michael Madryga | 12/12/21 |
| Rainbow Trout | 9-lbs., 6-ozs. | Brooke Wheeler | 03/02/19 |
| Brown Trout | 6-lbs. | Tim Wyatt | 04/24/04 |
| Flathead Catfish | 51-lbs., 10-ozs. | Rodney Stephens | 08/14/16 |
| Channel Catfish | 22-lbs., 8-ozs. | Robert Hancock | 09/28/11 |
| Longnose Gar | 30-lbs., 13-ozs. | Gerald Kennedy | 09/04/13 |
| Common Carp | 22-lbs., 0.2-ozs. | Taylor Cronan | 04/26/25 |
| Blue Catfish | 19-lbs., 5.5-ozs. | Tyler Kesselring | 07/27/24 |
For Subscribers: Lanier Map-Of-The-Month Bass Articles
November is a great time to go bass fishing. Fish are feeding up for winter, they are on predictable patterns and boat traffic is way down. That last one may be the most important factor at Lanier. Magnum spots are feeding heavily, and you can fish all day without getting washed off the lake by…
If you have visions of big spotted bass smashing topwater plugs, and you’d like to make those visions a reality, head to Lake Lanier this month. The Lanier spots stack up on brushpiles on points and humps, and these mean and feisty bass will rocket to the top to smash topwater lures most days. And…
How’s this for a win-win? Lanier is world famous for its spotted bass fishery, and we got Georgia’s top pro angler to mark a map with 10 February locations to catch big spots. Lanier has always been a good spot lake; then blueback herring were introduced into the reservoir. Conditions were perfect for the spots…
Want to catch some magnum spots this month? Or maybe you prefer to catch lots of keeper-size spots, still with a chance of a big one. No matter which you prefer, head to Lanier right now. You can choose from a variety of patterns that can produce a huge spotted bass or great numbers of…
Been having midsummer dreams of hard-fighting bass and wishing you could catch some? The heat is bad in August, but spotted bass on Lanier get on patterns that are predictable, and you can catch big fish with the right techniques. Plan an August trip to Lanier to get in on some surprisingly hot action. Lake…