On we weekend we made a trip out to a huge man made lake - the second biggest man made lake east of the Mississippi with 71,000 acres of water! One of the reasons I wanted to visit the lake, other then fishing of course, was to see the massive dam that was built back in the 1950’s. The Strom Thurmond Dam towers 200 feet above the Savanah River below and was a great place to visit and photograph. Local legends say there are catfish as big as Volkswagens below the damn, but I decided to fish above the dam in search of largemouth bass.
I went back to the lake at 5:00am on Tuesday morning and once again fished with the sunrise. There was lots of action in the water, and I could hear splashes nearby in the darkness. Once the sun was up I got a good look at what was causing the disturbance - gar pike and alligator gar! There were dozens of them right near shore, ranging in size from 3-4 feet. I had a couple hits at my lure, but was unable to get my hooks into anything. I wasn’t able to catch one, but I found a small dead alligator gar near the shore so I snapped a few photos. Later I had a good size bass smash a shallow diving crankbait, but once again I missed a hookset. I packed it in after a couple of hours, and rushed back to the hotel to change for work, avoiding being late by a few seconds.
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