Good Fishing at the Walter F. George Dam

My son Nate and I made the four hour drive to the Walter F. George dam to fish the tailrace.
We arrived around 0200pm Friday and fished until 0830am Saturday.
A friend of my son's who lives in Dothan joined us, and later a friend of his came down too.
Fishing with friends is always a winner, and we had a good time yanking each others chains and a little ball busting too, all in the name of fun of course.

It was slow most of the time, but there were some periods of very high activity for Blue cats and Stripers.
The Crappie were pretty much lockjawed and ignoring all manner of jigs and even our live minnows. Our group caught one decent Crappie.
It was tough finding and catching Skipjack shad, and of course they're the prime bait for the Blues, we'd brought fresh caught Bream from home with us and it got all but shunned.
Whenever we saw some near us we'd managed to catch a couple by freelining minnows while tossing stunned minnows as chum.

When the dam isn't generating power there isn't a flow of water/food coming through, and fishing just isn't as good as when it is.
It pays to know the structure in the area and where the fish hang out.
I learned by watching an old pro give us a clinic, and he shared his knowledge of which tackle/rig he preferred, the structures and areas holding the cats and his when, where and how to target them at the dam.
We weren't catching much if anything but very small to 1-3lb cats, when this guy and his friend set up and start catching 10-20lb cats at a rate of one every ten minutes just by fishing one small area that is a somewhat long cast to make.
He also gave pointers on how to rig and fish when the dam is generating.
And he told us in particular to pay attention to after they stopped generating, that there is about an hour long feeding period by the cats.

I tell you what, that feeding period, that "Feeding Frenzy", was an incredible sight to behold.
Big Blues rolling on the surface and jumping, hell there were large cats breaching all the way out of water!
We saw cats way bigger than anything we caught or had seen caught, excitedly feeding on the surface... Skying Blue cats, simply awesome!

When we used his methods and could place bait into or near the structure he pointed out, we caught some good sized Blues.
It really turned the trip around for us, and we ended up taking about 40lbs in cats home.

And during the early AM period when the dam generated power on Saturday morning, two guys showed up and started catching Stripers.
They caught six and lost four in an hour.
They were fishing drop-shot fluke rigs, white/chartreuse was apparently the color of the day and they did a good number on'em.
Again, do whatever is working for others.

I'm ready for a return trip!

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