Warming Trend Mother Lode Of Bass On Chattahoochee Reservoirs

Tyler Morgan with a 6.14-lb. spotted bass caught during a Lake Oliver tournament Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025.

The warming trend that hit Georgia last week had fishermen across the state itching to be on the water, whether pulling jigs for slab crappie or bass anglers hoping to roll a big one that moved up shallow. It sure paid off for GON content contributor Tyler Morgan, of Phenix City, who had a big winning bag on Bartletts Ferry during a Saturday tournament, and then followed that up with a monster sack on Lake Oliver the next day.

Tyler is a recognizable name for GON readers. He’s part of the team of experts who provide fishing reports for GON. And coincidentally, he will be featured in the upcoming March issue of the magazine with a Map-of-the-Month feature article that includes 10 GPS locations to set a Lake Oliver prespawn pattern.

Tyler said, “My buddy David Casciaro used to live here but moved to New York a few months ago, and we planned a weekend for him to come visit and fish a few of the local tournaments.”

Talk about good timing —David picked the warmest first week of February in memory for a visit back to the Columbus area to fish the Chattahoochee River reservoirs with Tyler.

“Saturday we fished Lake Harding (Bartletts Ferry) in what’s know as the Lazy Man tournament,” Tyler said. “We fished around in the river, and the water temps weren’t quite what I wanted to catch them shallow. We ran around in a few of the major creeks, and they were stained and a few degrees warmer. The main river was 57 degrees, and in the creeks with stain we found water that was 60 to 62. After this really warm week, a wave of fish pulled shallow for the early prespawn. We caught them on shallow wood and docks in the creeks smaller pockets. We caught them on a Z-Man Jackhammer (ChatterBait) in green shad and spring craw with a Zoom Shimmer Shad trailer in a appropriately matching colors. And we also threw an Untamed Tackle Ace Jig in PBJ and black-and-blue with a Zoom Speed Craw matching trailer. One of us was casting the moving bait, and the other picking the cover apart with a jig. The biggest key was finding the warmer, which has the fish pulled on the shallow cover and ready to bite.”

The pair weighed-in a 17.4-lb. five-bass limit to win the tournament, and they had big fish with a 6.5-lb. largemouth. Second place in the tournament had about 15 pounds.

Tyler Morgan and David Casciaro with a 17.4-lb. five bass limit caught Saturday, Feb. 8 on Bartletts Ferry (Lake Harding). They won the Lazy Man tourney, with second place weighing 15 pounds.

“That was an incredible day in itself,” said Tyler. “Then Sunday we went to Lake Oliver and fished the Sunday morning pot tournament that they have every weekend. We took what we learned the previous day (on Bartletts Ferry) and how the fish were positioned, and ran we with that pattern on Oliver. Upon putting the boat in the water, we saw that the color was perfect and the water temperature was 61 degrees. We fished the lower half of the lake below Standing Boy Creek with pretty quick results, catching several quality keepers, and then the 7-pounder ate a spring craw Jackhammer, which took both of us by surprise because usually a 5-pounder at Oliver is a giant!

“We ran up the river above Standing Boy, which is the major creek feeding Oliver, and as soon as we passed Standing Boy, the water became much cleaner and the water temp started dropping. We continued upriver fishing similar things to where our bites had been coming—with no success in the cleaner water. We were near the dam, so before returning to the lower end, I wanted to check a few places I know spots stage this time of the year. I got two bites up there on isolated rockpiles that were both big. One being the 6.14-lb. spot that ate an Ace Jig from Untamed Tackle, and the other pulled off before we got to see it. We spent a little more time up there without any bites and decided to run back to lower end and rerun some of the places we caught them earlier in the dirty water and caught another 4.5 and several more quality fish that ended up giving us the 24-lb. total. The dirty water on both lakes was warmer and was key to positioning those fish on the shallow cover like the day before on Harding. The baits stayed the same and the pattern really was pretty much the same for both lakes. It was just realizing how important those few degrees in temperature change will help those fish pull up shallow.”

Tyler and David with their five-bass Lake Oliver limit that weighed 24 pounds and included a 7-lb. largemouth and a 6.14-lb. spotted bass.

Tyler has been fishing Lake Oliver his entire life, and the 6.14-lb. spotted bass that he caught is by far the biggest spot he has seen in person from Oliver. There’s no established lake record for Oliver. This bass would have set a mark that would have been very difficult to ever top, but a lake record requires a weight from a certified scale and verification of the species by a DNR biologist, who wouldn’t be available until the next day.

“I didn’t have it in me to kill a spot of that size, so I took a ton of pictures and let her go to possibly be caught again another day,” Tyler said.