About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 15, 2020)
2B I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com Wednesday, January 15,2020 LAKE LANIER FISHING REPORT: Full moon makes for good bass fishing Water Conditions: Lake Lanier’s water level has risen to 1,069.67 feet, which is just 1.33 feet under the full pool of 1,071. Water temperatures remain close to 50 degrees. The main lake and creeks mouths are clear, and the creeks and rivers are slightly stained to muddy. The Chattahoochee River below Buford Dam is mostly clear. Check generation schedules before heading out to the river at 770-945-1466. Bass fishing has been a little tougher, but some anglers are still keeping up with catching the fish. The bass seemed to be grouped up in ditches, along bluff walls and on the edges of deep timber. Now is the time to really get in tune with your Lowrance Electronics and to trust what your Structure Scan and traditional 2D sonar can and will show you. It’s an old angler saying that fish eat all night during the full moon and are harder to catch during the day. I have fished after sundown on many full moon nights and I think the catching is just as hard when the moon is high and bright after and below daylight. We went this morning and caught 12 fish in a couple of hours so don’t ever assume anything in fishing. With the past week’s full moon, the bass have been active all night, in the morn ings, during active feeding times and Buford Dam genera tion periods and again at sun down. That means anytime you can get on the water is a great time to fish and catch! We have been starting our days both in the ditches and also small points on the bluff walls. Deep diving crank baits have worked to pick off the fish that are close to the steeper rocks and drop offs. Try using a SPRO Little John DD70, which will max out at 15 to 20 feet deep. Make long casts parallel to drop offs and dig your lure as deep as you can get. The crankbait has been producing fewer but larg er bites. When the bass won’t eat crank baits, try working small crawfish imitators. Small, 14-ounce jigs or a l/4th-ounce stand up jig head rigged with a Big Bites Yo Momma or Fighting Frog with the claws dipped in orange JJ’s Magic. Cast these offerings up shal low, and allow them to fall slowly down the rocks. Most hits will occur either on the shallow sides or from the bot tom of the drops. Using and understanding your Fowrance or other brands of electronics is critical to catching deep fish on Fake Fanier. Teaching modern elec tronics and how to read them has become one of the most popular trips I per form in winter. The anglers I join in their boats to tune up electronics come in all ages and experience rates. These tend not to be return customers, but I often see them again at work, on the lake or at tournaments. These clients can usually gath er enough knowledge to take it and run with it. Email me if you wish to book a trip. Some master anglers are probing the timberlines during the day. With the quality of electronics and the bigger screens, you can often find fish suspended within or at the bot tom of standing timber. Remember that the majority of the trees were topped out at 35-feet, so knowing that will give you an idea of where to look. Timberlines that lead into the ditches can hold the motherload of fish, and these are the fish other anglers are missing. You can tempt these timber fish into biting with a spoon or a Fanier Baits Fruity Worm on a drop shot rig. Striper fishing is decent, and the fish continue to be scattered. There are a lot migrating both north into the rivers as well as down south where the stripers move up into the creeks. We have seen fish, loons and gulls surfacing as the crush shad out over the ditches and in the pockets early in the day. Once you locate fish on your Fowrance Electronics early in the day, set out a spread of two down lines and the rest on flat lines or planner boards. Set out a spread of medium-sized min nows along with a lively her ring or trout. The flat lines seem to be best early in the day, and the down lines seem to the most produc tive as the sun gets up in the sky. Fet your electronics show what depth the fish and bait are located, and match that depth with your flat lines or down lines. Pulling one or two Captain Mack’s Mini Rigs continues to be a productive method, so use these to cover water and to catch fish. Run your rigs from 1 to 2 mph. Crappie fishing has been up and down. Successful perch jerkers in the winter are usual ly anglers who are adept at placing their minnows or jigs up under productive docks. Fook for slightly stained water, and start your search there. The stained water con tains more nutrients, and that is where the bait and crappie will group up. Focate docks in these same areas, and fish the ones that have brush, beaver hutches or timber edges. Bank Fishing: Because the stripers are moving into the pockets, they present bank anglers with a great opportuni ty to cast lures and live bait from the shore. Grab a couple dozen medi um to large shiners. Make sure your reels are rugged with fresh 10 to 14-pound test monofilament. You can cast Bomber Fong A’s, Redfins or a SPRO Bucktail while deploy ing live bait rigs. Then set out a bottom rig (basically a Carolina Rig or a hook with a leader tied to a swivel with a large sliding bar rel weight rigged on your main line) and rig another rod with a slip bobber with depth set to 10 feet deep. Secure you live bait rods in a good rod holder and wait! Eric Aldrich is an outdoor writer, marketing specialist, guide and bass angler. He is currently book ing teaching trips for Lake Lanier's spotted and largemouth bass. Reports are based on personal experience and permission from a close network of friends. He would love to hear from his readers, so please email him at esaldrich@ yahoo.com Remember to take a kid fishing. ERIC ALDRICH Columnist Bob Christian Dawson County News Junior Mason Barnes runs past the student section on a fast-break against the East Hall Vikings on Jan. 7. Dawson County went on to win the game 87-52. FROM 1B Boys basketball two combined for nine assists and nine rebounds. The game against East Hall on Jan. 7 unfolded in a similar fash ion although, in this case, the Tigers opened their lead early in the first period with a 13-3 run over the first three minutes of play and finished the period up 29-12. East Hall cut into the Tigers lead with a big push in opening minutes of the second period as Dawson County suddenly went ice cold at the net. A long, arc ing three-pointer from Whitmire at the four-minute mark broke the cold streak and the Tigers rallied to finish the half up by 18. The Vikings continued to bat tle through the third period but the Tigers never slowed down and stretched the lead to 66-41 heading into the final eight min utes. Dawson County settled down in the fourth and put on a show in the last moments of the game with a no-look behind the back pass from Whitmire to sopho more Ben Swafford for an easy lay-up capping off the night’s festivities. The Tigers combined for 25 assists and 15 threes on the night with the senior Gibson leading the team in scoring with 21 points. Reed posted another 17 points, while junior Mason Barnes tacked on 14 points in the contest. With the pair of wins, the Tigers extend their current win ning streak to seven games and remained undefeated in region al play at 7-0 and an overall record of 17-2. The victories also boosted the Tigers to No. 4 in the GHSA statewide AAA ranking. Despite the success, immedi ately after the game coach Herrick stressed the importance of not losing sight of the funda mentals as there are still several tough match-ups to face in the final weeks of the 2019-2020 season. “We don’t want to get content with the big lead,” Herrick said. “Don’t want to start creating bad habits. We need to stay focused and keep playing defense.” The Tigers hosted the Greater Atlanta Christian Spartans (12- 5, 5-1) on Tuesday, Jan. 14. Results were unavailable as of press time. FROM 1B Wrestling opening, the Tigers entered the eight-team tournament as healthy as they have been all season. Still the loss of those two athletes caused a handful of adjustments to the team line-up according to volunteer assistant coach Gregg Adams. “We are having to bump some guys up a weight class,” said Adams. “Having to move some around.” Facing off against Fumpkin County in the first contest of the day, the Tigers held their own in the open ing matches with co-cap- tains DJ Mitchell (SR) and Ethan Powell (JR) along with sophomore Kincaid Schuette all picking up wins. Unfortunately, the Indians overwhelmed the Tigers in the remaining matches and, combined with the two for feits, knocked Dawson County from contention for the top prize by handing them their first loss of the day. Only the top two teams of the tournament qualify for a berth in the Georgia High School Association state tournament, and Dawson County still had a slim chance to claim their spot so long as they could success fully wrestle through the los er’s bracket. The Tigers started that journey against the Greater Atlanta Christian Spartans who entered the match after their first-round loss to the North Hall Trojans. Again, Mitchell, Powell and Schuette won their indi vidual matches to give the Tigers the early lead. This round they were followed by wins from juniors Fogan Buytendorp and Josh Dea, along with senior Danny Phillips and the Tigers hand ily defeated the Spartans to keep their slim hopes alive. Sadly, a pair of re-aggra- vated injuries increased the number of forfeits for Dawson County heading into their next match before the team set foot on the mat for the third-round battle with regional rival Fannin County. “With the injuries or guys were already fighting and the new ones that showed up today, I decided to focus on the team’s health,” Haynes said. “Now we’re looking ahead to getting them ready for the individual tournament in a couple of weeks.” In the face of six forfeits from the start, Dawson County entered the fourth round with no chance of win ning the contest and the Tigers were eliminated from the tournament with their sec ond loss of the day coming at the hands of the Rebels. “I don’t want to take any thing away from the other teams here today. These teams are wrestling really well, very physical,” Haynes said. “Our area has been tough this year and is very evenly matched across the board.” As anticipated, the top- ranked North Hall Trojans squared-off against the sec ond-seeded Fovett Fions in the championship dual. After a hard-fought battle that fea tured some of the area’s elite wrestlers, North Hall emerged as the 2019-2020 Area 5-AAA champions. The Tigers will wrap up the regular season with a pair of home matches on Jan. 21 and Jan. 28 in Ford Phillips Arena before travelling to Fovett for the Area Traditonals on Jan. 31. FROM 1B LSU opening minutes; and both teams punted more than they had in their combined conference championship and first round playoff games. It wasn’t until the fifth drive of the game, Clemson’s third, that a team finally broke the scoring barrier when Clemson quarterback Trevor Fawrence, after a beauty of a fake-handoff, scam pered into the end zone from one-yard out to give his team an early lead. The Bayou Bengals didn’t manage to find the end-zone until their fourth drive, but then found it in the quick- strike manner to which FSU fans have grown accustomed to over the season win Burrow connected with Biletnikoff winner Ja’marr Chase for a 52-yard bul let to tie the game. Clemson put ten unanswered points on the board in the next seven minutes, kicking a field goal to close the first quarter and opening the second with a touchdown, to give the Tigers what would be their biggest, and last lead of the night Burrow finally exploded in the second quarter, and as he has done all season, he did it by putting up almost video game like statistics and shattering long- held records. After covering 72-yards in two plays, FSU briefly struggled to cross the goal line from the three before Burrow accounted for his second touchdown of the first half with a three-yard designed run around the right end. On FSUs next possession, after a five- play punt from Clemson, Burrow used all of his weapons, completing passes to Justin Jefferson and Clyde Edwards- Helaire before finding Chase in the end zone for the second time. The six play, 80-yard drive only took two minutes, and just like that, FSU took the lead 21-17. Another five-play punt from Clemson put the ball back in Burrow’s hands with 3:31 remaining before the half and he took full advantage of the situation. On the strength of a 29-yard run from Edwards-Helaire and a pass interference penalty on Clemson, FSU used the remaining time to score one more touch down, Burrow to Thaddeus Moss, to lead the Clemson Tigers 28-17 heading into the half. Clemson’s defense continued to give the Tigers every chance to win the game. After an FSU punt to open the second half, Clemson scored on their first drive of the third quarter and, along with a two-point conversion, closed the gap to a meager three points. But, then along came Joe. Burrow had seen the light at the end of the season and he would not be denied the glittering jewel that would cap off the most incredible individual season in college football history. Engineering two more scoring drives, one in the third quarter and the second in the fourth, Burrow found Moss for his record setting 59th passing touch down of the season and then found Chase again to put the icing on the cake with his CFP single-game record setting sixth touchdown of the night. Burrow finished the season as the sin gle season record holder for touchdown passes (60); the single season record holder in touchdowns accounted for by a player (65); the record for total com bined yards in a national title game (521); and the all-time passer rating (204.6). He led the most prolific scoring team in NCAA history as the Tigers racked up 726 points in the 2019-2020 cam paign and he finished third overall in passing yards in a single season with 5,671 yards through the air. On their way to the trophy, the FSU Tigers defeated eight top-ten teams, including Clemson and Oklahoma in the playoffs, and finished as only the second 15-0 team to claim the NCAA Championship trophy.
