There are some sleek, swift fish swimming in waters near Atlanta that will stretch your string like no other freshwater fish. Striped, white and hybrid bass fight harder than other fish you can hook in Allatoona and Lanier, and this time of year is a great time to catch them.

The author tossed a jerkbait into a surface-feeding melee on Lake Lanier and hooked this striped bass. Photo courtesy of Ronnie Garrison.

These three species are all closely related and are in the Morone family of fish. They are true bass, unlike black bass that are actually in the sunfish family. White bass are a freshwater species, stripers are saltwater fish that spawn in fresh water and hybrids are a manmade cross between the two.

White bass are not native to Georgia waters, but have been stocked here since Allatoona and Lanier filled. They can reproduce naturally in both lakes, so they are no longer stocked. The average size is about a pound, but they get much bigger. The state-record white bass weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce and was caught at Lake Lanier by J. M. Hobbins on Jun. 16, 1971. They fight hard on light tackle and are good to eat.

Striped bass run up Georgia rivers to spawn from both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. They can live in freshwater year 'round and have been stocked in many of our lakes, including Lanier and Allatoona. They can't reproduce naturally in either lake, so all stripers in these waters are stocked fish. Lanier and Allatoona get two to three stripers per acre each year.

Stripers get big. The record striped bass for Georgia weighted 63 pounds and was caught in the Oconee River on May 30, 1967, by Kelly A. Ward. They are extremely hard fighters and will test your tackle with long, strong runs.

Hybrids are a cross between a white bass and a striped bass. At Georgia fish hatcheries eggs are taken from stripers and mixed with sperm from white bass. The fry are grown to a few inches long, then released into our lakes, usually in larger numbers that the stripers. They can't reproduce naturally. Hybrids are not stocked in Lanier.

The state record for hybrid bass is 25 pounds, 8 ounces. That fish was taken on May 1, 1995, by David Hobby on a fishing trip at Lake Chatuge.

The daily limit on white bass, stripers and hybrids at both Allatoona and Lanier is 15 fish in any combination. Only two of the 15 may be longer than 22 inches. There is no minimum size limit, and that upper limit was set to protect bigger stripers.

White bass are the easiest of the three species to catch and stripers are the most difficult. Although hybrids are sterile and can't reproduce, and stripers don't have enough moving water upstream of Allatoona or Lanier to spawn successfully, all three species make spawning runs up the rivers and creeks. That provides an excellent time to catch them.

Lanier and Allatoona are similar in some ways and tactics for catching linesides will work on both, but there are some differences, too. Try the following to catch these fish now.

ALLATOONA LAKE
Allatoona Lake is an 11,860-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers impoundment on the Etowah River about 30 miles north of Atlanta. It gets heavy boat traffic, but spring is a good time to fish it. Since it has all three species of linesides, you can concentrate on one or try for the trio during a single fishing trip.