I recently blogged about getting my Georgia Bass Slam started for 2026 with a Bartrams bass and ended the blog wondering what species would be next.
The answer came a couple of days ago in the form of a chunky shoal bass. That was an extra good one to notch from my standpoint because of the statewide minimum size for the species. Bass must be of legal size, if a minimum size exists, for bass slam qualification, and the minimum size for shoal bass is 15 inches. That’s not a giant, but it’s a quality fish and not always simple to come by.
My qualifying shoal bass was 16 inches long and probably weighed around 2 1/2 pounds. I also caught a smaller one of maybe 13 inches from the same area. I was fishing a creek in the Upper Chattahoochee River watershed and actually thought I might find a Chattahoochee bass.
Interestingly, I caught the first shoal bass on a tiny crappie jig. I was still rigged up from an earlier crappie trip when I arrived and had a tandem rig of a Bobby Garland Mayfly and Itty Bit Mayfly. The fish hit the Itty Bit version, which is only 1.25 inches long.
Ironically, the smaller shoal bass was on the same rig, but it hit the larger of the two jigs!
Watch for a short video from that afternoon on Fishing on Foot YouTube!
Fishing on Foot 