Carters Lake

Georgia's deepest lake is a gin-clear highland canyon where herring-fed spotted bass prowl 40-foot bluff walls beneath undeveloped mountain shoreline.
Georgia3,200 acresMAX DEPTH 450 FT
Carters Lake shoreline — open the app for the full depth map

The fishery

Carters Lake is a 3,200-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir impounding the Coosawattee River between Ellijay and Chatsworth, held back by Carters Dam, the tallest earthen dam east of the Mississippi. It is the deepest lake in Georgia, plunging past 450 feet, with steep clear water, rock bluffs, and 62 miles of almost entirely undeveloped, forested shoreline, giving it a true highland-reservoir character. The lake forks into the main Coosawattee River arm and the Mountaintown Creek arm, with major access at the Damsite, Woodring Branch, Doll Mountain, and Ridgeway recreation areas plus the marina. Spotted bass are the dominant gamefish and key on blueback herring and shad over deep, clear water, so long tapering main-lake points, humps, brushpiles, and channel-swing bluffs are the money structure. Seasonally, spring pushes fish shallow to spawning pockets, while summer and fall concentrate quality spots 25 to 50 feet deep chasing herring, with early-morning topwater schooling over points and humps and a drop shot, jig-head minnow, Damiki or spoon dialing them in once the sun climbs.

Species

Spotted bass · Largemouth bass · Striped bass · Hybrid striped bass · Walleye · Black crappie · Bluegill

On BassHawk

Everything below points at one goal — finding the most, and the biggest, largemouth bass on Carters Lake.

FISH CARTERS LAKE WITH BASSHAWK

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