Picture, in your mind’s eye, a 45-foot-high hardwood tree lying on its side 35 to 40 feet down in Clarks Hill Lake. It’s one of about 200 trees Capt. William Sasser, of Evans, has placed in the lake over the last 30 years or so.

“I’ve sunk trees from the dam to (Lincoln County’s) Georgia Flats, up Georgia’s Little River to Lloyds Creek, and there are many I haven’t been back to in several years,” he said.

Why has the...

It is 10:25 a.m., and a brass-bright sun has already pushed temperatures into the 90s. The reflection off the water 3 miles out into the Atlantic off Richmond Hill makes it hard on the eyes and, if not for the polarized glasses, unbearable. This is to be the first 100-degree day of 2009, but who cares? After all, I have just seen my first-ever 100-lb. tarpon.

In fact, there were 10 or more all roughly the same size, cruising the channel between St. Catherines and Ossabaw islands. Anchored in 35 feet of water, Capt. David Newlin had a pair of novice saltwater fishermen — my son Myles and me — pitching and snatching popping corks with wriggling pogys 6 feet under them. Well, occasionally under them; most of the time they were frantically skipping toward the surface in escape mode.

David is a full-time saltwater captain and guide and has been in the business of making fishermen happy for 30 years. He is a walking, talking encyclopedia of coastal...

It’s amazing the number of trout anglers you’ll see trudging toward the parking lot to head home an hour or two before dark, just about the time the fish begin to really ramp up their feeding in the waning light of day. If you’re one of the folks hoofing it off the river when the...

An Ocmulgee River flathead catfish weighing 103 pounds on certified scales was caught the morning of Aug. 19. The giant Appaloosa, taken above the Highway 96 bridge in Bonaire, would have swamped the current 83-lb. state record. However, the fish was caught on a trot line, meaning it’s not eligible for WRD’s state-record status.

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