About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 2019)
2B I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com Wednesday, April 10,2019 LAKE LANIER FISHING REPORT Bass, crappie both biting best in shallow water Lake Lanier is above full pool at 1,072.39 feet or 1.39 above full pool of 1,071 feet. Lake surface temperatures are in the upper 50’s with some warmer pockets with water temps around 60 degrees. The lake below Browns Bridge is clear around the main lake and in the creek mouths. It’s also clear to stained midway into the backs of the creeks. The creeks and rivers up the lake are clear in the mouths and light ly stained in the backs. The headwater rivers are slightly stained to stained. Check generation schedules before heading out to the river below Buford Dam at 770-945-1466. Bass fishing has been very good for anglers that are willing to move around and find the active bites. Catching bass can seem easy this time of year, when you are around the fish but don’t expect them to just jump in the boat everywhere you go. A lot of bass will be staging around docks in the pockets. Isolated docks can hold numbers of bass this time of years. A jerk bait is one of my favorite lures to throw. Bass will relate to the black floats that gather heat. I like to cast a SPRO McStick 110 along the sides of the floats. Reel it slow and steady with an occasion al pause and jerk to trigger bites on the ends of the deeper floats. Other lures like a Jerk Shad or a Zoom Fluke skipped under the floats will produce some good bites. You can also work a Gamakatsu Alien Head rigged with a Lanier Baits finesse worm in the areas around docks. These same lures can also work very well on the reef markers around the main lake. Moving lures like a spinner bait, SPRO Little John MD or a jerk bait on the reef markers has been a solid pattern. There are a lot of fish in certain areas, but not every reef marker is holding fish. Small swim- baits like a Big Bites Baits Cain Thumper on a -'-ounce jig head can work extremely well for pre-spawn spotted bass. Hit the rocky banks with a SPRO RkCrawler to catch some big spotted bass after dark. Striper fishing has been good. The fish are shallow where they are easier to catch. Start out early in the mornings, slow trolling multiple flat lines and planner boards. This shallow pattern has been working very well early in the day and can last longer on overcast days. Target the shallow water in the backs of the creeks and in the rivers. Keep a variety of live baits like small trout, herring and medium shiners for your best success. The medium-sized herring have been the best baits to use shallow. As the sun rises, the fish will often remain shallow. As a general rule, the stripers will move deeper where they can be coaxed to hit the same flat lines. Watch your Lowrance electronics and switch to downlines as needed. Most of the stripers are remaining rela tively shallow. Continue to pull flat lines out toward the middle of the pockets. Cast a SPRO McStick or a Captain Mack’s Mini Rig to catch a few extra fish while pulling live baits. After dark, the stripers are relating to lighted boat docks but there are also fish shallow in the backs of the creeks. Cast a SPRO McStick or Bomber Long A to the banks and retrieve these lures in a slow-to- medium retrieve. If you can feel the wob ble of the lure through your rod tip, then that is the best retrieve speed. Stripers feel these lures through their lateral lines, so when you can feel the lure wobbling, then you know you are in the zone. Crappie fishing is very good as these fish are spawning shallow. All you need is a crappie minnow below a float. Keep in mind that these fish will be located in schools. If you do not get a bite within the first 30 minutes, then move on to more productive water. Cast your minnows shallow in the pockets around laydowns or docks with brush. Casting or trolling small Hal Flies is also a great way to cover water and to find the active fish. Bank fishing: Fishing with a live min now below a bobber is a great way to catch a variety of fish in early spring. Crappie, brim, white bass and spotted bass will all strike a properly presented minnow. There is something about fishing with a bobber that is hypnotic. Get a bucket full or crappie or medium shiners and hit the bridges or laydowns in your local park banks for some relaxing, sometimes very active fishing to make a fun day from the banks, local farm and subdivi sion ponds. Reports are based on personal experi ence and permission from a close net work of friends. He would love to hear from readers, so please email him at esal- drich@yahoo.com. Remember to take a kid fishing. Eric Aldrich is an outdoor writer, marketing specialist and bass angler. Reports are based on personal experience and permission from a close network of friends. Contact him at esaldrich@yahoo.com or visit his website at aldrichfishing.com. ERIC ALDRICH Columnist Bob Christian Dawson County News Senior Frankie Muldoon runs March 16 in the 3200-meter race at the GACS Invitational. Home field makes difference for Tigers golf Bob Christian Dawson County News Members take advantage of the chipping and putting greens of the Chestatee Golf Club. FROM 1B Muldoon to pursue a degree in sports nutrition with the goal of advising athletic teams on proper diet and eating habits. “Every college and professional football team has a nutritionist on staff,” Muldoon said. “It’s an important part of being an athlete and teams need that informa tion.” Cross country Head Coach Charles Beusse covered the impressive list of accomplishments that highlight Muldoon’s cross country career at DCHS and the impact she has had on the pro gram during her four- year tenure. “(Muldoon) has won four individual region championships, led the women’s team to two region championships, set the DCHS women’s cross-country school record, been a four time All-State runner, led the women’s team to four top 10 finishes at state, and helped our women earn a fourth place podi um finish at state,” Beusse said. “While she will be missed, the standard that (Muldoon) has helped to set for DCHS cross country will last long after she is gone. (Muldoon’s) signing with GSU is not only because of her athletic ability, but also due to her hard work in the classroom and her over all character as an indi vidual.” Due to the gap between running sea sons at DCHS, Muldoon waited until near the end of the school year to begin some of her appli- cations so she could include statistics from this season’s track and field events. The happi ness and relief of putting the decision behind her was evident as she spoke after the ceremony. “Obviously, it’s a relief. I know I was real ly cutting it close,” Muldoon said. “I’m just really excited to see where it takes me. I’m anxious to get to know the girls and become a part of that team.” By Bob Christian bchristian@dawsonnews.com Unlike every other Dawson County sports team when the members of the boys and girls golf team play a home game, they are not playing on the high school campus. Instead, the Tigers face off against their visiting opponents on the forest ed, rolling-hills alongside Lake Lanier that make up the Chestatee Golf Club. According to its web site the Dennis Griffiths designed course features a combination of “bril liant water holes and vig orous mountain-like ter rain” and the 18-hole, par 71 course was named one of the top 100 courses to play in the United States by Golf Digest in 2002. A challenging course is just one of the many ben efits of the club that is extended to the members of the Dawson County golf team as part of a generous sponsorship package administered by Club General Manager Cheryl Howard. “Brian Ferris, who owns the club, he told me several years ago that we promote junior sports. We want to promote junior golf. Those are our future golfers,” Howard said. “That’s kind of how it all started, him giving me the leeway to say, ‘yes, pro mote the junior golf.’” Members of the Dawson County varsity teams, in addition to practicing on the course Monday through Thursday, are given free access to walk the course or ride the course for a minimal cart fee so long as they coordi nate ahead of time. Chestatee’s resident professionals occasional ly give lessons to the team during practice ses sions and are made avail able to the individual players for private instruction. “The pros give lessons, Mike gave the girl’s team a lesson on chipping and putting a couple of weeks ago,” Howard said. “They teach a lot of the kids.” The support of the Chestatee Golf Club is rivaled only by the sup port of the membership and the surrounding com munity as demonstrated by last year’s bag drive organized in an effort to buy the Tigers matching team color golf bags with the team logo. Howard came up with the idea of a bag drive. Using the club’s newslet ter and flyers posted around the club house she explained the circum stances to the member ship and put out a request for donations. By the end of the drive the Club bought a com plete set of bags for both teams with funds raised solely from the members’ donations. “The members support the juniors. They love seeing them here, they talk about them, they like to watch the junior’s play” Howard said. “This year we turned over our rental clubs, and we gave the sets of clubs we no longer needed to team, and then the members will come in with buckets of balls that collect in their yards and they give them to the coaches.” The Tigers have taken full advantage of the opportunities provided by the course sponsorship as the team’s have combined to produce a 9-1 record at the mid-point of the sea son and have risen to the top of the standings in the regional rankings. “It’s a good environ ment for kids to be in because members, obvi ously, set such good examples,” Howard said. “Golf is such an integrity sport it is such a good sport for them to be in.” Dawson County returned from spring break with a nine-hole tournament ver sus East Jackson at the Double Oaks Golf Course on April 10 but is not scheduled to play at Chestatee again until April 16 when they tee-off a tri match with North Hall and Union. Results were unavailable as of press time. FROM 1B Reed Teamwork and Excellence,” according to the website and has been active on campuses across the country since 1966. FCA is a recognized club on all three Dawson County campuses to include the high school, junior high and middle school, and the groups of athletes meet once a month in a “huddle” to listen to guest speakers, usually athletes or coaches from the local community, and discuss faith as it relates to sporting experiences. “We are part of the high school, the junior high, and the middle school and all three operate the exact same way,” Reed said. “I personally bring in a speaker, a motivational speaker, and they tell the athletes about what sports and faith did for them in their lives and careers.” Traditionally managed by the Forsyth County chapter of the FCA, the idea to split Dawson County into a separate dis trict was brought up over the summer of 2017 and Reed took over as the full time director in November of 2018. “FCA opened up where they said we’ve seen your heart Sam, we’ve seen how much you love students, we’ve seen your vision of where it can grow,” Reed said. “We want to ask you to come and direct things in Dawson County. We want to see growth.” Reed spent the last six months reach ing out to community groups and lead ers in an effort to gather the donations and sponsorships necessary to begin implementing his vision, and he is excit ed to be able to welcome and thank the community in the first major event of his tenure, the Annual Banquet and Auction on May 5 featuring retired hall- of-fame quarterback Steve Bartowski. “This is one of the best nights that we have, potentially we’ll have over 600 people there for this,” Reed said. “It is a celebration of what happened in the year, but it is also a way of us enjoying a dinner together. When you’ve got 600 people in the same room that has the same cause, and the same heart that you’ve got, its just a wonderful evening all together.” For more information about volun teering or donating to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, visit www.fca.org or call (678)617-1003. A New Beginning TRINITY CHURCH of DAWSONVILLE An Eco Presbyterian Church Palm Sunday 4/14 10:30 am Good Friday 4/19 5:00 pm Easter Sunday 4/2110:30 am Fire Station #2, Highway 53 Just past Tractor Supply 706-531-4252
