After he retired from active duty in the Army this last summer, my younger brother, Dave, moved to Auburn to care for our aging father. Dad is pushing 90 years old now and needs additional help. The great news for me is that now I have an avid fishing buddy in Alabama who I can rely on for some action when I visit.
After the 12-hour drive to get from the Washington DC area at Auburn, I was anxious to be aired out. So, on Friday Dave and I headed up to a spot he had heard about near Alexander City for a little bit of bass fishing. I think it was called Hillanbee Creek, and it dumps into Lake Martin. Since I do not have the topo maps for that area, I can’t be more specific. But the GPS coordinates are good, so you can get there if you are ever in the area.
Dave was reluctant to drive his flatland car all the way to the turnout, so we parked on the dirt road about a half-mile back. The short walk on a spectacularly warm and pleasant November day put us at the stream’s edge. It looked great! Riffles upstream, deep water, and an accessible shoreline downstream. The only problem was that it had rained several days earlier, and the water was tinted a dark chocolate color. That did not discourage us from fishing for a few hours.
Tell a friend about this article by clicking on this link
Although the location was good, the action was slow. Dave caught two small bass and I was surprised to catch a 13 inch perch. As you can see from the pictures, the water level was significantly down – probably 6 feet below normal judging from the watermarks that stained the surrounding rocks. We were able to find the deep holes that should have held more fish than we caught, but the fish must have been stuffed, like us, after Thanksgiving and were not interested in what we were throwing
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore