Lake Nottely

Fertile waters and low fishing pressure combine to make Lake Nottely fishing some of the best bass fishing in North Georgia. Lake Nottely is 20 miles long and has 4,180 surface acres at normal summer pool elevations. Located in Blairsville, Lake Nottely is one of the few places in Georgia where bass anglers have a realistic chance of catching three black bass species from the same lake.

Largemouth bass make up about 70 percent of the bass population in Nottely and support most of the fishery. Spotted bass are a distant second with 25 percent, and smallmouth bass pick up the remaining 5 percent. Nottely is one of only three major reservoirs in Georgia to have bronze backs (Blue Ridge and Chatuge are the others), but their numbers in Nottely have fallen to the point that they are not really a player anymore.

If your goal is to catch a Nottely smallmouth, stay downlake near the dam. Lake Nottely fishing, for bass, is known more for size than numbers. Traditionally, the average largemouth bass caught will weigh more than 2 pounds, with spots lagging behind at about a pound each. Any largemouth, even approaching the 10-pound range, is going to be a fish of a lifetime, but there are good numbers of 2 to 4-pound fish and some more than 5 pounds.