It pays to be in the right place at the right time, and year after year, Peach State bass anglers find themselves in that enviable position. Georgia is blessed from top to bottom, side to side, with great bass fishing. Six species of black bass are found in the state's lakes, rivers and streams, providing great diversity that anglers in other regions can only dream of.

The bread-and-butter species of Georgia bass anglers is, of course, the largemouth bass, with the spotted bass coming in a close second in much of North Georgia. Travel to the right part of the state though, and you can also fish for shoal, redeye, smallmouth and Suwannee bass. In Georgia, you can wet a hook for your favorite bass species on large reservoirs, small lakes, farm ponds, backwater swamps, rivers large and small, and even cool-water mountain streams. In every county all across the state, there is somewhere to go bass fishing.

Let's take a look at some of the best places to try this year. All of these waters offer good fishing for bass, and anglers can't go wrong making them part of a weekend fishing trip throughout the year.

WEISS LAKE
Starting in the northwest part of the state is the Coosa River, or more technically correct, the upper end of 30,200-acre Weiss Lake. A vast majority of the impoundment falls on the Alabama side of the border, with only about 2,000 acres on the Georgia side, running from the state line up to the old Mayo's Bar Lock and Dam.

Anglers can do just fine though on the Georgia side by fishing any of the several large backwater sloughs off the river channel. Largemouth and spotted bass are both available in good numbers. Even a few redeye bass may be caught if you spend some time working up tributary creeks as far as you can go in a small boat. The main attraction, though, is largemouth bass in the sloughs.

Weiss Lake is a shallow reservoir that flooded hardwood bottoms and cotton fields. There are thousands of old stumps left in the sloughs, and while those can make navigation sort of tricky, they sure do hold fish. Creek channels wind their way through the sloughs before emptying into the main river channel, and working the stumps on the edges of the channel with a spinnerbait or jig is sure to produce throughout the year.

The main river channel can provide good fishing, too, especially for spotted bass once the early spring rains have ended and the river current slows and the water begins to clear. Good places are where any small branch or creek drains into the river. Hit these areas with a crankbait followed up by a Spotsticker jig or something similar to catch spotted bass.

Anglers have good access to the area at Brushy Branch boat ramp on Blacks Bluff Road, just west of Georgia Highway 100. The boat ramp is situated in the largest slough, and you could fish all day without ever making it out to the main river. But if you do decide to try another location, the channel out to the river is well marked, making for easy running.

One thing for anglers to keep in mind is there is no reciprocal license agreement between Georgia and Alabama on Weiss Lake, so if you venture into Alabama water, you need a Bama fishing license.

WEST POINT LAKE
Our next bass fishing hole is West Point Lake near LaGrange. The lake is a 25,900-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir extending 35 miles along the Chattahoochee River to the southwest of Atlanta.