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Lake Sinclair
Lake Sinclair is in central Georgia near Milledgeville directly downstream from Lake Oconee on the Oconee River. The 15,330-acre lake is operated by Georgia Power. Bass fishing and crappie fishing are very good and quite popular on Sinclair, and the lake is also home to plenty of catfish. The lake's dynamics changed in 2013 when Georgia Power ceased operation of Plant Branch, which created a warm-water discharge near the Highway 441 bridge area. Even the iconic Plant Branch smoke stacks were brought down. Lake Sinclair stretches through the counties of Baldwin, Hancock and Putnam. Lake Sinclair was created in 1953.
Lake Sinclair Resources
Sinclair: Level: 1.7 feet below 340. Temp: 68 degrees. Clarity: Clear. Bass: Karl Pingry reports that Ed at Lakeside says it’s taking 17 to 19 pounds to win the bass tournaments right now. Crankbaits are a hot ticket. A Bandit 200 in black or chartreuse and a No. 7 pearl Shad Rap is working. Ed says to throw this along the dock pilings. A 1/2-oz. size Rat-L-Trap is the one Ed recommends. A Rapala X-rap in CH-Ghost, a Pop-R and a black buzzbait are also hot lures right now. If you want to fish docks and blowdowns, try a jig in dark purple or plum. Shaky-head worms in plum apple, black emerald or junebug red or an Ol’ Monster in the same colors near the backs of the coves are also good choices. The new pattern this month is flipping a ChatterBait along the grasslines. I suggest a grass jig…
Read MoreLake Sinclair Fishing Articles
Sometimes a graph adds more frustration to a bass-fishing situation than it does to help the cause. Such was the case for Jim Windham and I on Lake Sinclair last week. “There’s a pile of fish down there,” Jim said as his boat drifted over the point we’d just pulled crankbaits across. The graph was…
There’s plenty of different techniques you can use to load up a stringer slap full of crappie — corked minnows, tight-lining, trolling, jigs, jigging spoons and probably even a few more that I haven’t tried. Last month on Lake Sinclair I got to learn a different and very enjoyable crappie-fishing technique — shooting docks. Shooting…
You just know August bass fishing after a long, hot, dry summer is going to be tough. You probably don’t think of Sinclair as a good place to go, unless you are planning a night trip to fish lighted docks. But Sinclair may surprise you. Mike Blackshear and Rick Compton brought six bass weighing 16.7…
Brent Moye, of Macon, was fishing a bass tournament on Lake Sinclair in late January when he landed a record-breaking 2-lb., 11.5-oz. black crappie. Brent and his brother Craig were vertical jigging 1/4-oz. Hopkins spoons over a school of shad on the main lake near Nancy Brach when Brent set the hook on what he…
David Phillips, of Milledgeville, caught this 10-lb., 7-oz. lake-record hybrid on Lake Sinclair on Nov. 27, 1998.
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Lake Sinclair Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 13-lbs., 2-ozs. | Jimmy Edge | 02/10/90 |
| Hybrid Bass | 10-lbs., 7-ozs. | David Phillips | 11/27/98 |
| Striped Bass | 42-lbs. | Mike Wicks | - |
| White Bass | 2-lbs., 7-ozs. | James Borders Jr. | 07/12/92 |
| Black Crappie | 2-lbs., 11.5-ozs. | Brent Moye | 01/22/00 |
| Channel Catfish | 21-lbs., 5-ozs. | Kenny Durden | 05/02/07 |
| Longnosed Gar | 15-lb., 3-ozs. | Dustin Turk | 08/18/09 |
| Flathead Catfish | 39-lbs. | Tommy Spell | 07/19/22 |
| Blue Catfish | 79-lbs., 8-ozs. | Guy Covington | 04/27/2024 |
| Yellow Perch | 15.04-ozs. | Eric Phillips | 02/09/22 |
| Spotted Bass | 3-lbs., 9.76-ozs. | Larry Cason | 05/10/21 |
| Warmouth | 12-ozs. | Christopher Leverette | 02/22/23 |
Oconee River Below Sinclair Record Fish
| Largemouth Bass | 10-lbs., 3.2-ozs. | Tracey Jackson | 03/26/17 |
| Channel Catfish | 32-lbs., 6-ozs. | Rick Leitheiser | 04/07/96 |
| Flathead Catfish | 62-lbs. | Brian Estes | 06/13/99 |
| Striped Bass | 63-lbs.* | Kelly Ward | 05/30/67 |
| Black Crappie | 1-lb., 9-ozs. | Duke Campbell Jr. | 04/01/06 |
| Bluegill | 1-lb., 8-ozs. | Duke Campbell Jr. | 03/31/15 |
| Shellcracker | 1-lb., 13-ozs. | Ben Bell | 05/29/22 |
| Blue Catfish | 50-lbs., 6.4-ozs. | Eli Carey | 04/06/24 |
| Bowfin | 7-lbs., 6.016-ozs. | Benjamin Hammock | 07/24/23 |