Four boats set out this morning for Team Lanier’s 2018 Tugaloo River Hybrid Run on a pristine morning with no wind, fog or rain in the weather forecast. After meeting at Oakwood Bait & Tackle to get our bait we were all to converge at the Rabbittown Cafe for breakfast then caravan up to the launch on the Tugaloo River at Stephens County Park. We headed north for the skinny water that I had visited in previous years for these fearsome fighting Hybrids. Bringing in one of these football shaped fish was a feat all on its own because they fought like a freight train making each fight memorable. The others scouted ahead as we slowly made our way through the narrow channels. One mistake getting off course would mean we would run aground in the mud. As our other boat captains were coming back toward us from the north it was stated that there were no fish to be had. They stated that the water temperature was 50 degrees. The area we were fishing was south of the Yonah dam. Since this was a weekday we were counting on the water generation to make the Hybrids active. Water coming out of the bottom of the lake would definetly be a lot colder than the Lake Yonah’s surface temperatures. We still forged northward in the hopes that our other captains were wrong. Well being a little patient here proved to be the right approach. The Hybrids came one after another then Don latched onto a 10lb 29″ Striper. It was a tremendous fight with Don on the front of the boat as the Striper moved from the right side to the left crossing and tangling several rods on the back of the boat. We ended up netting this monster on the left side of the boat. This fish came on a Planer Board with a Blueback Herring 40′ behind the board. Its size was totally unexpected. We wanted to call out to the others but we either had no signal bars or no more battery to contact them. They should have hung with us instead of the “gun and run” technique they were accustomed to. 

The others did catch some fish. After they left us early in the day they headed southward for deeper waters.

We had discovered that the pattern to catch fish today was fishing the mouths of the creeks.We fished an area of the river where two creeks entered from each side. Water temp was 50 degrees. We basically circled the area picking up a fish on each pass until the gusty wind showed up. We knew that is was time to leave as we could no longer control the boat under these gusts.