A couple of local anglers won the April 26 Berry’s Trail tournament at Lake Sinclair. This was the last of four tournaments that make up the Berry’s Trail scheduled for Lake Sinclair. The last of eight tournaments that make up the regular season will be held at Lake Oconee May 17.

The two-man team of Morris Smith from Milledgeville and John Lindsay from Eatonton found the winning pattern by catching a five-fish limit that weighed 23.64 pounds and took home a check for $3,630. They used spinnerbaits and jigs to catch their winning weight.

Finishing a distant second was the father and son team of Don Randall from Macon and Ricky Randall from Byron. They brought a five fish limit to the scales that weighed 18.64 pounds and took home $1,820 for their second place finish.

Don Randall also caught the big bass of the tournament, weighed 6.65 pounds, and he earned an additional $1,230 for the largest fish caught during the tournament. Their pattern consisted of fishing spinnerbaits around spawning shad to catch their fish.

Third place and winnings of $1,130 went to Willie McMullen from Oxford and Chad Stahl from Griffin. They weighed in 18.57 pounds and caught their fish using crankbaits.

After some bad weather early in the tournament fishing season, the Berry’s Trail tournaments have enjoyed good weather for the last couple of tournaments and the fish have cooperated. One hundred and twenty-three two-man teams fished the tournament and caught a total of 500 largemouth bass weighing 1162.15 pounds. Almost 80 percent of the teams weighed in five fish limits.

The average weight per fish caught was just more than 2 pounds and was down slightly from the last two tournaments, which saw average weights per fish around the three pound range which indicated a healthy fishery at both Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair.

The largemouth bass spawn was virtually over during this tournament and likely explained the drop off in average weight per fish. The shad spawn had just begun on Lake Sinclair, and many of the anglers took advantage of the shad spawn in the early hours of the tournament to catch their fish.

Anglers used a variety of lures to catch their fish with spinnerbaits, jigs and crankbaits accounting for the majority of the fish that were caught.

The last of the regular season tournaments that make up the 2014 Berry’s trail is scheduled for May 17 at Sugar Creek Marina at Lake Oconee. After that last regular tournament, a classic will be held on June 7-8 for those anglers that fished at least five of the eight regular season tournaments.

The anglers qualifying for the classic will fish Lake Oconee June 7 and then move to Lake Sinclair June 8. The combined weight for the two days will determine the classic winner, which has a top prize of $10,000. The Berry’s Trail is the top fishing trail in Central Georgia if not in all of Georgia.

I have GPS coordinates for fish attractors that have been placed in Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair by the Georgia Department of Wildlife Resources Division (GWRD). The information also includes photos of the various attractors that the GWRD is now deploying in the lakes to improve the fishery. Just send me an email and I will forward you a copy of the material.

If you request the GPS information by email and do not receive a response from me within a couple of days, please resend your request and make sure your email has been scanned for viruses. I get a lot of email and my computer’s virus checker and security system stops many suspicious emails. 

I have been asked by several anglers about the GPS coordinates for the Christmas trees that were placed in Lake Sinclair by Georgia Power earlier in the year. I am still awaiting that information from Georgia Power and once I have obtained that information I will announce its availability in an upcoming article. Good fishing and see you next week.  

Contact Bobby Peoples via email at brpeoples@windstream.net