Neely Henry Dam – North Alabama Fishing
Eugene L. 09.20.23
I made a trip back to Alabama to chase after some striped bass on the Coosa River again, of course during some of the hottest days possible in late July. Joining me again in my possible heat stroke adventures was our more firearms, hunting, and offroad-inclined Alabama man Paul B. We only seem to meet up when the heat index is above 100 for some reason. Last year we met further south at Lake Jordan to try and fish the dam’s tailrace there.
This year we did get to fish the dam tailrace of Neely Henry Lake. Both lakes are on the Coosa River system and have healthy populations of striped bass, catfish, largemouth, and spotted bass. The river starts near me up in Northwest Georgia then flows through Alabama till it reaches the Alabama River and then flows into Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The goal of the trip again was to try and catch some striper that tend to congregate in the deep oxygenated water of the tailrace, but our fishing trips seldom go to plan it seems.
The lake is situated not too far from both of us only an hour and a half to the dam. I do want to note there are parking lots you can pull into on both sides of the dam. But only the east side of the dam has a fishing pier and is close to the water outflow from power generation. The plan was to meet in the parking lot right around sunrise, but when we got there we saw plenty of people had gotten here even earlier. Once we both got there we started rigging up our rods with some bucktails and spoons. We didn’t have any bait yet so it was artificials only till we got some.
After 30 minutes of casting the bucktails and spoons, we had nothing to show for it besides some frayed leaders from snagging on the rocky bottom. Switching to topwater and sub-surface plugs wasn’t the trick either. So we decided it was time to get some live bait, luckily I had brought one of my cast nets just in case. Seeing some guys fishing near the base of the pier get some bait in the rocks I followed their example. But my 8ft cast net with heavy lead line was not the right choice. I almost ended up losing it to the rocks because I couldn’t close it up fast enough. Luckily I could still reach the horn of the net and open it up to pull it off the rocks.
Lucky for us a local saw my struggle and told me where I needed to be throwing the net. There is a deep eddy right next to the dam at the end of the fishing pier. This area doesn’t have as many shallow rocks to get snagged on, so unless you really let your net sink you should be fine. Along with the cast netting tips he even told us how to set up our rigs here to target striped bass. We talked for a bit with him giving us plenty of local knowledge of how to fish the tailrace. So even with the knowledge of how to rig up I still had a problem still, I was missing all my three-way swivels. I had misplaced my rigging tackle bag during my move, so we had to make do with a weird double swivel set up. It worked very meh and tangled often but it was good enough. We even got a few short strikes but still no striper.
After sharing some extra shad I had netted up and starting to talk with some of the other locals on the pier helped us out even more with info I wasn’t able to find online. The guy whos a regular at the dam told us the striper just weren’t here yet. While they were normally here by now, they just were slow to show up in any number. He also told us how power generation and water flow affect fishing. About how when the power company adds oxygen to the outflow it really works up the bite. While we were talking I noticed a guy further up the pier was struggling with a larger fish. He had hooked up on a solid blue cat but didnt have any landing gear to get the fish up onto the pier. I had my pier net, so we coached him into pulling the catfish into the net and got it up on deck. He was chasing striper as well so didn’t really want to deal with the catfish and gave it to one of the guys we had been chatting with. His buddy did catch a 5lbish striper a little after this, the only striped bass we saw the whole morning.
With it only getting hotter and not wanting to get skunked after all this effort I decided I’d rather catch a catfish over nothing. I shortened up the leader to the hook and started using cut-up shad for bait. I started casting into the eddy instead of the current and immediately started getting bites. It was a bunch of smaller catfish which didnt put up much of a fight but a fish is a fish. While I didn’t want to deal with catfish that day, people were 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 while longer getting a few more cats, but that Alabama summer sun was punishing. We decided to call it quits and go get some lunch. Mi Casita down the street is an awesome little Mexican spot we both highly recommend for good food and good prices. While the striper fishing didnt go as planned it was still fun to meet up with Paul and get some time on the water. I have a few tips for anglers who want to go fish the Neely Henry Dam. First off pack plenty of water, there is no shade out there, and if you’re fishing the summer you’re going to sweat a lot. Second talk to the locals and pick their brains if they’re willing. Sharing some live bait is an easy icebreaker. Third, try to use the bathroom before you get to the dam, it’s a cesspit-style toilet, and the night fishermen make a mess of it. You can literally smell it before you see it from the fishing pier sometimes. 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 enjoy being outside when you can.
