Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current, December 25, 2019, Image 12
2B I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com Wednesday, December 25,2019 LAKE LANIER FISHING REPORT: Fish still biting despite cooler weather Water Conditions: Lake Lanier’s water level has risen about a half a foot and is at 1,067.83 feet, or 3.17 feet below the normal full pool of 1,071. Water tem peratures are in the low 50s. The main lake and creeks mouths are clear to stained. The creeks and rivers are slightly stained to very stained. The Chattahoochee River below Buford Dam is still stained. Check genera tion schedules before head ing out to the river at 770- 945-1466. Bass: It was brisk enough this morning to make me think fishing would be slow, but the bass are still biting. This trip consisted of answering a customer’s questions about his Lowrance electronics’ Structure Scan and teaching him how to set up custom ized waypoints, icons and names. Reviewing all of this provided the opportuni ty to scan a lot of water to see what the fish are doing for this report. Many of Lake Lanier’s bass are in a transition peri od right now. Some are shallow. Some are suspend ing around bait from 10 to 30 feet while others are relating to the bottom out deep from 40 to 55 feet deep. These fish are swim ming below the bait schools waiting for an easy meal. The thermocline has not set up yet, and low 50-degree water allows the bass the ERIC ALDRICH Columnist luxury to roam throughout the water column as they pursue herring and shad. Junk fishing may be your best bet this week. The fish are at all depths, and they are eating a variety of for age. Small to medium-sized shad, larger herring, gizzard shad, brim and even craw fish are all on the menu. Pick your favorite method and be willing to change up as needed to catch fish. We have continued to tar get the ditches early in the day. Spotted bass will slide up shallow early before sunrise and actively feed for about an hour on sunny days and even longer on overcast days. These fish will swim out to deeper water as the sun gets up. Cast a SPRO Little John DD or RkCrawler or try fishing a jerk bait like a McStick or Pointer 110. Cast these lures up shallow parallel to steeper banks and retrieve them with a slow, steady or jerk and pause retrieve. You can keep up with the bass in ditches throughout the day. After the shallow fish quit biting move out deeper and cast a Cane Thumper or Suicide Shad on a Fish Head Spin and work it along the bottom from 10 to 30-feet. Fish will relate to both the edges of the ditches as well as out in the gut of the ditches from 35 to 55 feet deep. Use a drop shot with a Prizm Colored Lanier Baits Fruity Worm. This color along with Blue Lilly have been working very well for the deeper fish. Try working a TRD on a Ned Rig and just drag it along the bottom. This is a killer technique for catching bass, but remember, less is more. Don’t shake or hop it. Just let the lure drag or swim along the bottom. Keep a little slack in the line and feed the lure line as you work it along the bot tom. Bites will usually be subtle. Other lures are producing both shallow and deep. Jigging spoons in the ditch es as well as along bluff walls or out deeper can score multiple bites when you get over a good school. Slow rolling spinner baits or digging crawfish colored crank baits around rocky banks is a great way to catch a fat spotted or large- mouth bass this week. Striper fishing remains good. Different methods are working, and anglers should take clues from the above bass report. Pick your strengths and go fish ing. Trolling umbrella rigs is working. If you prefer not to troll, then dragging bait on flat lines, planer boards and down lines are all via ble methods depending on what depth and location your Lowrance Electronics show fish. Trolling is a great way to both cover water, as well as locate and catch stripers on Lake Lanier in early winter. Locate the clouds of shad schools on your screen and pay attention to what depth they are relating to. Drag a Captain Mack’s regular or mini rig around 2 m.p.h. Position your rigs at or just above the depth where you mark bait and fish. Successful trolling anglers need to be able to control the depth of where your rigs are running. You can utilize planer boards, down riggers and lead core line to obtain the proper depth with your rigs. You can also add or decrease the weight of your buck trails, add or delete trailer or switch from heavy monofil ament to braided line. All of these factors affect the depth of your rigs ran. Watch YouTube or refer to some of the best guide web sites for the proper formula for successful trolling. Last weeks’ rains seem to have pushed a lot of the bait schools into the mouths of the pockets and creeks. Once you locate productive looking water, you can deploy either flat or down lines, depending on where the fish are positioned in the water column. Medium shiners, herring and smaller trout are all working well. Try adding one large trout or gizzard shad to your spread to coax a big bite! Crappie fishing has picked up a little. Master crappie anglers know how to shoot tiny jigs up under docks. Crappie love docks with brush because they provide cover where these tasty critters can hide and ambush prey. Hopefirlly you have been building a milk run of pro ductive docks on your GPS. If not, utilize your side scan to locate the best water. You will often see thick clouds that indicate shad schools or small, compressed dots which are often crappie. Crappie will be located in these same haunts through out the winter Shoot crappie jigs up under the back floats of the docks, engage you reel and allow the jig to pendulum through the water column. The crappie may be as shal low as 5 feet or as deep as 30 feet, so pay attention to the depth where you catch fish and concentrate on making the same cast again. Bank Fishing: There is a good population of catfish on Lake Lanier. Most anglers catch these whis kered fish as a by catch while targeting stripers or bass. Catfish are aggressive predators that will strike live or dead bait and occa sionally eat artificial lures. There are several species of catfish, and they can range from one pound on up to 30 or more pounds. You should use medium to heavy tackle when fish ing for catfish from the banks. Use 10 to 14-pound monofilament and make sure your line is fresh and your rod and reel are in good shape. You can pur chase commercial rod hold ers or make your own out of PVC, which you can hammer into the bank to secure your rods. Use live shad, cut dead shad or traditional catfish baits like nightcrawlers or chicken livers. Rig up a Carolina Rig. Use a hook with a 1 to 2-foot leader tied to a swivel and a 1-ounce egg sinker on the main line. Hook your bait securely, and make a lob cast to prevent the bait from slinging off the hook. Target banks that have deep water in front of them. Wait a while for the fish but move after an hour if you don’t get a bite. Eric Aldrich is an outdoor writer, marketing specialist, guide and bass angler. He is currently booking teaching trips for Lake Lanier's spot ted and largemouth bass. Reports are based on per sonal experience and per mission from a close net work of friends. He would love to hear from his read ers, so please email him at esaldrich@yahoo.com Rememberto take a kid fishing. FROM 1B Girls basketball Dec. 19, to remain tied atop region 7-AAA with a regional record of 3-1. Returning to familiar ground on Dec. 20, Dawson County hosted the Oconee County Lady Warriors for what turned into a tough, physical contest. The first period saw multi ple turnovers on both sides of the ball as each team played tight one and two man press defenses to open the game. Oconee’s long pass offense found the weak spots in the Dawson defense and the Lady Warriors held the edge 11-9 at the end of the set. Dawson County shifted gears in the second period after junior Bella Henson fired up the crowd with a WNBA worthy no-look, behind the back pass in traffic to Benson for two points. From there, the Lady Tigers went on a 16-2 run, led by D’Oliveira’s 12 points and featuring Townley’s perfect 4-for-4 performance from the line, to take a 33-17 lead into halftime. “The second quarter was much better than the first,” Sweat said. “We started mov ing on both ends of the floor.” Oconee County opened the third period with a quick burst of scoring, but the Lady Tigers fought back and matched them point for point to hold onto their double-digit lead heading into the final minutes. The final eight minutes resembled more of a wrestling match than a basketball game as the Lady Warriors resorted to tying up the ball and pur posefully fouling in their efforts to slow down the pace of the game. By the end of the period, three Lady Warriors had fouled out of the contest. Dawson County maintained their composure, sinking 75 percent of their free-throw opportunities for 12 points, and secured the victory by a final score of 59-43. D’Oliveira led the Lady Tigers for the second game in a row with 14 points, 10 assists and a ridiculous 10 steals. Townley followed with 13 points along with 5 rebounds and 2 blocks. The win extended Dawson County’s overall record to 8-5 and provided the Lady Tigers with a burst of momentum as they prepare for the opening round of the Christmas in Commerce tournament on Dec. 26 where they will face the 9-4 Stephens County Lady Indians. Bob Christian Dawson County News Junior Mariah Benson fights for the rebound on Dec. 20 against the Oconee County Lady Warriors.The LadyTigers went on to win the game by a final score of 59-43. FROM 1B Football 4 Oklahoma Sooners, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Led by Burrows, LSU enters the game as an offen sive juggernaut that has been among the top four teams in the country since week 3. Averaging 554.3 yards per game, the Tigers ran the table in 2019 going 13-0 overall and 8-0 in the SEC to include a dominating performance over the Georgia Bulldogs to win the conference. Burrows’ rewrote the record books in his Heisman winning campaign in 2019 as he shat tered the single season pass ing yards and passing touch down marks for both LSU and the SEC with 4,715-yards and 48 touchdowns. He also became the only quarterback in LSU history to throw for 300 or more yards in three consecutive games. On the receiving end of Burrows’ arm is arguably the most talented wide receiver in the country, Ja’Marr Chase. With 1,498 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns, Chase leads the NCAA in both cate gories and stopping him will be critical if Oklahoma hopes to win the game. Opposite Burrows, Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts is making his third con secutive appearance in the college football playoffs, hav ing made the trip twice with Alabama before transferring to the Sooners in 2019. Hurts leads the country in yards per attempt (11.76) while also ranking 20th in rushing yards (1,255) among all players. He also has an NFL caliber target in wide receiver CeeDee Lamb who has picked up 14 touchdowns and 1,208 yards through the air. Both teams fielded improved defenses in 2019 when compared to past sea sons, but Oklahoma has found themselves in trouble in a handful of contests during the season. The Sooners sole loss came to the unranked Kansas State Wildcats, and they had to come from behind twice against the Baylor Bears to win their spot in the final four. LSU, on the other hand, has outscored their opponents by an average of 26.6 points per game and faced their toughest challenges against a pair of top-10 opponents in Auburn and Alabama. The 2019 Peach Bowl should be a high-scoring shootout between two of the best offensive units in the game, but in the end the weaker defense of the Sooners will be the difference. Prediction: LSU 45 Oklahoma 41 The Fiesta Bowl: In what is the most antici pated game of the 2019 sea son, the Fiesta Bowl caps off the evening starting at 8 p.m. in Phoenix, Arizona featuring the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes against the No. 3 Clemson Tigers. The game is a re-match almost down to the last detail of the last time the two teams met in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl when No. 2 Clemson shut-out the No. 3 Buckeyes 31-0. This year will be a different story as Ohio State brings two Heisman finalists to the table in quarterback Justin Fields and defensive end Chase Young. Fields commands the number one scoring offense in the country, while Young leads the nation in sacks (16.5) to anchor the second ranked defense. Widely described as the most well-rounded team in college football, Ohio State was ranked among the top-4 in pre-season and has never left. The Buckeyes have flip- flopped the No. 1 ranking with LSU all season as the dominated opponents from week one to week 13, leading the NCAA with an average of 48.7 points per game. After transferring in from Georgia, Fields found the right fit in the Buckeyes with an eye-popping 40-1 touch down to interception ratio on 2,953 yards bolstered by run ning back J.K. Dobbins 1,829 yards and 20 touchdowns. Well tested, Ohio State enters the game having won five games against top-25 opponents defeating Cincinnati (by 42), Wisconsin (by 31), Penn State (by 11), Michigan (by 29) and Wisconsin again (by 13). They also have a pair of wins over two conference champi ons outside of the Power-5 against CUSA’s FAU and the MAC’S Miami (OH). The Tigers also feature a well-balanced attack with quarterback Trevor Lawrence overcoming some early sea son woes to amass 3,172 yards passing and 34 touch downs and Travis Etienne picking up 1,500 yards and 17 touchdowns on the ground. Despite their season-long dominance, Clemson arrives in the playoffs surrounded by question marks. Their 13 sea son opponents finished with a combined record of 80-78 and only featured one team ranked in the top-25 at season’s end in the Virgina Cavaliers. This lack of experience may well prove to be the undoing of the defending champs, as the Tigers have not seen any thing comparable to Ohio State on either side of the ball. Young will be a force to be reckoned with, and the Buckeyes offense will find the gaps in the Clemson defense to give Ohio State the victory. Prediction: Ohio State 42 Clemson 31