Fishing North Alabama – The Neely Henry Dam Tailrace
Eugene L. 09.19.23
I made a trip back over the border into Alabama this summer again to chase after striped bass. Joining me again this hot July day was our more hunting and offroad-inclined Alabama man Paul B. For some odd reason, we only seem to meet up to fish during the hottest days possible in locations with no shade. Last year over at Lake Jordan and now this year at Neely Henry Lake. Both bodies of water are a part of the Coosa River system. It starts in Georgia and flows down to the west of Montgomery where it joins the Alabama River before flowing into Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast. Again this year, the goal was to try to catch some summer striped bass congregating in the dam tailrace’s highly oxygenated waters. I’ll tell you now, things did not go as planned, but they seldom do on these trips. At least this time we got to fish the tailrace, unlike last year.
Neely Henry Lake is the second lake in the Coosa River system, the first being Weiss Lake over on the Alabama-Georgia border. It sits just south of Gadsden Alabama and north of Talladega. The lake itself is well known as a good fishing spot for largemouth and spotted bass, but that wasn’t what we were targeting this day. In the tailrace, the main targets are white bass, striped bass, and catfish. My goal was to try and get us on some striped bass. The plan was to meet up here around sunrise and hopefully catch some striper.
It was about an hour and a half drive out to the lake, there is access to the river on both sides of the dam, but the east side is the only one with an actual fishing pier. It also is the side where the power generation occurs. So that’s the side we chose to meet up at. We got there right around sunrise but the parking lot was already pretty full with it being the weekend. Once we met up had a bit of breakfast and started rigging up. Without any live bait yet I set up all the rods with bucktails and spoons to try and work up some fish till we got some live bait.
Fishing artificials ended up with a big ole goose egg of fish after 30 minutes of casting. We did catch a lot of rocks and lost a lot of gear. So it was time to switch up the plan, we needed to get some live bait. I had brought one of my cast nets just in case and I’m glad I did. It was a bit sketchy throwing the net though. First I tried in the calmer water south of the pier, but I ended up almost losing the net in the rocks. Luckily I could still reach the net horn and open up the net to pull the net out.
A local guy watching me told me I should be throwing the net from the pier right next to the dam. That area is deeper and doesn’t have as many rocks to get caught on unless I let the net sink all the way down. He even told us how to set up our rigs here to target striped bass. After talking for a bit he had to go but any local knowledge is always welcome. But we had a bit of a problem, while moving I misplaced my rigging tackle bag so didn’t have any three-way swivels with me. So we used two swivels at a time to try and make due. This worked pretty meh, with lots of tangles. But we did get a few short strikes but no striper still.
Talking to some of the other locals told us some info that I couldn’t find online, the striper just weren’t here yet. The old guy who fishes regularly says normally they get up to the dam in July but just haven’t shown up in any number yet. He also told us about how the power generation and water flow affects the fishing. How when the power company adds oxygen to the outflow it really works up the bite. As we were talking I noticed a guy struggling with a larger fish. He had hooked up to chunky blue catfish but didn’t really have a way to get it up to the fishing pier. So with a little coaching, we dropped down my pier net and had that big catfish up on the deck. He was chasing striper as well so gave the fish away to one of the old guys. We did see his buddy land a 5lbish striper as well but that was it in the bass realm for the morning.
Not wanting to go home skunked I said to hell with it and changed from live bait over to cut bait. Cutting up the shad I had netted and shortening up my leader I started fishing the eddie near the dam to target catfish. And the catfish were definitely there, I immediately started getting bites. Nothing big but a small fish is better than no fish. While I didn’t want to really deal with catfish that day, people were more than happy to take these little guys home. They were the perfect size to skin and then fry whole, so I can’t blame them.
We fished for a little bit more with a few more catfish, but that Alabama summer sun was roasting us so we decided to call it quits and go get some lunch down the street at Mi Casita. Nice little Mexican spot with good food and great prices. While our day didn’t go to plan, it’s still always fun to get out and get some water time. I have a couple of tips for anglers who want to go check out Neely Henry Lake. First off make sure to pack plenty of water, it’s hot out and there is no shade. Second, talk to the locals they got knowledge from all their time there. If you have spare baits, share some they can really help you out like they did for me. Third, make sure you use the bathroom before you get down there, the bathroom is very rudimentary and left messy by overnight anglers. You can smell it before you see it. Fourth check out the power generation and water flow schedule online before you plan a trip, Alabama Power has this set up online here for you to see. Lastly, have fun even if you don’t catch a lot just enjoy being outside when you can.
