Sometimes it's nice to get back to your fishing roots -- to the simple pleasures that made you an angler in the first place. As a youngster, I used to wet a line in every tiny creek, pond and beaver dam that I thought might hold a fish, regardless of the small size of either the water or any potential catches in it. By the end of a successful day, I might have a small stringer dangling from my handlebars, and it would ordinarily be made up of bream.

One place sticks out vividly in my mind: Sandy Run Creek in Houston County. It ran behind my home, flowing through the center of a swamp that at the time I considered as exotic and mysterious as equatorial Africa. It took a considerable amount of effort to cut a 4-foot wide path down to it, but that done, I had my own fishing retreat, complete with a cut-off stump for a lawn chair and Y-forked branches stuck in the ground for rod holders. Life was good!

Those memories are revived every time I visit a small pond and cast out a worm or cricket to see if the bream are biting. Fortunately, Georgia possesses plenty of venues where I get to revisit those adventures. Here's a look at seven such locations around the Peach State.

LAKE LUCAS
We begin our quest for the best bream waters at Jones County's Lake Lucas. Only a few years old, and relatively unknown, this 625-acre impoundment is owned by the Macon Water Authority. The city used to maintain a water-treatment plant on the bank of the Ocmulgee River, but the flood of 1994 put it out of commission. In response, the water authority built a plant on higher ground in Jones County. Still, the vast majority of the water in the adjoining lake is pumped up through a large pipe from the Ocmulgee River. Only a small amount of the water comes in from Town Creek and there is little outflow. As a result, the water is very clear.

To ensure the purity of future drinking water, no gas motors are allowed on the lake; only electric trolling models can be used. This restriction obviously severely limits fishermen's mobility, especially on such a large reservoir. There is only one boat ramp, so you have to do some planning, watch the wind, and carry an extra trolling battery. You certainly don't want to run a long distance downwind and then not be unable to get back to the boat ramp because of a weak battery.

Despite this limitation, Lake Lucas offers fishermen an excellent opportunity to catch some good fish.

According to Steve Schleiger, a fisheries biologist with the Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Resources Division, anglers at Lake Lucas can expect catch rates similar to what they would encounter on the much-larger lakes Oconee and Sinclair. However, owing to low water fertility, the growth rate of those fish is slightly below the state average.