Logan Martin Lake - My Home Lake For Bass Fishing!
Its hard for me not to be biased toward Logan Martin Lake. I have lived on or near this lake for many years and have caught my best fish here. The fishing is great - as it is on most other Alabama lakes. But it offers some of the best offshore structure fishing (which I have learned to love) that I have seen anywhere. The lake has an abundance of underwater humps, flats, roadbeds and islands that almost always hold fish. 
My fishing partner, Barry Brasher and I have won tournaments just by locating a concentration of bass in one of these areas and working it thoroughly for a limit. I have fished other Alabama lakes with success, but have never had the consistency as on Logan Martin. Location and Size Logan Martin Lake is located in east-central Alabama on the Coosa River, approximately 30 miles east of Birmingham (the lake borders St. Clair and Talladega counties). The reservoir extends 48.5 miles from the dam upstream to Neely Henry dam and contains 15,263 acres. It has 275 miles of shoreline. Full Pool is 465.0 feet. Logan Martin is one of six Alabama Power Company reservoirs on the Coosa River. The lake draws much fishing pressure from Birmingham, Anniston, Talladega and surrounding areas. The I-20 Bridges sit almost perfectly as the lake’s halfway point. Logan Martin’s upper-end is a typical Coosa River reservoir as the upper 17 miles varies only slightly from the original river channel. But from that point downstream, the reservoir widens dramatically as sloughs, pockets, flats and incoming creeks dot the landscape all the way to the Logan Martin Dam. Logan Martin Dam Construction began on Logan Martin in July 1960 and the dam was placed in service August 1964. Logan Martin Dam is 612 feet wide and constructed of 180,000 cubic yards of concrete. It is 97 feet high at its highest point.
Major and Secondary Creeks Logan Martin Lake is fed by several creeks. Choccolocco Creek, Clear Creek, Poorhouse Creek and Rabbit Branch, all creeks on the lake’s lower half, are the most prominent and most widely fished. Cropwell Creek(Lakeside Landing, Big Bull area - commonly called "The Park") and Seddon Creek are smaller, but widely fished creeks also found in the lake’s middle section. Cropwell Creek is an excellent area for road beds, structure and humps. In the area above I-20 bridge, Ohatchee Creek, Cane Creek, Acker Creek, Alligator Creek, Broken Arrow Creek and Blue Eye Creek not only feed the lake but offer excellent largemouth fishing. Most of the grass is in this area of the lake. Bass in the Lake Largemouth bass and spotted bass are the main draw for anglers. Both species exhibit average to above average growth and are very plump. Largemouth bass are abundant in the 12"-18" size range. Spotted bass are also abundant with many spots in the 14"-21" size range. Due to the strong water current created from hydroelectric activity at the dams, these spotted bass are some of the most powerful and aggressive you will encounter anywhere. Bass club tournament results indicated Logan Martin was fourth in the state when evaluating catch data. Striped, white and hybrid bass make annual spring runs upriver and have created quite a fishery at the headwaters (below Neely Henry dam). Fishing starts to pick up in March and can continue through the summer for stripes and hybrids when the power company generates water. Stripes and hybrids can also be found in cold-water springs located throughout the lake during summer months. Fishing Hotspots Anglers targeting the lake's lower end should check out the mouth of Clear Creek to find spotted bass. This creek, on the east side of the lake, also contains many sloughs holding largemouths. Rabbit Branch, just across the river's main channel, is also a great place to target if you like to skip jigs under docks. From Rabbit Branch down to the dam, you find a lot of docks and piers with spotted bass beneath them. Dion Hibdon used this "dock skipping" technique to win the 1997 B.A.S.S. Masters Classic on Logan Martin. This tactic is a way to take large numbers of fish, primarily spotted bass. If you go upriver from Rabbit Branch, the next major creek on the left or west side is Cropwell Creek. This creek also has plenty of docks in it that are loaded with bass, but is best known for its proliferation of underwater structure. It is loaded with old roadbeds and underwater humps. One of the advantages of fishing Cropwell Creek is that is gets restocked almost every weekend. That "stocking" comes from the release of tournament catches from competitions held out of Pell City Lakeside Park, Lakeside Landing or Town and Country Food Mart. Continue upriver toward Stemley Bridge and you find banks along each side that are good for spotted bass. Above Stemley Bridge you can find both largemouths and spots in the mouth of Poorhouse Branch on the lake's east side. Another area that holds largemouths on the east side of the lake is the mouth of Choccolocco Creek. This creek is a local favorite during hot weather. Even in August you often can find 70-degree water if you go all the way back in the creek to Jackson Shoals. The water in the main lake is so hot at this time of the year, shad school up in the back of Choccolocco. And of course the bass follow the shad. You can often "tear 'em up" on topwater, flukes, crankbaits or spinnerbaits. Find the cool water and you can catch bass in 1 1/2 to 2 feet of water. Also try Seddon Creek on the lake's west side just south of Riverside Marina. It has a well-defined creek channel and a good ledge. Large crankbaits are good to use here and tend to take the bigger bass. Going north you will pass the I-20 bridge and the U.S. Highway 78 bridge. The sloughs in this area are full of big spotted bass. You will find some very productive stumprows, underwater islands, and deep dropoffs and ledges in the middle of Blue Eye Creek. A Carolina-rigged plastic lizard or worm, a lipless crankbait or a jig can produce some extremely good bass. Beyond here the lake becomes more river-like with stump rows lining the edges. This is a great area to catch that big largemouth to anchor your stringer on tournament day. Then just head back to the weigh-in!
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The dam has three hydraulic turbines, each capable of passing 4,488,000 gallons of water per minute. The dam also has three alternating current generators capable of annually producing 400.2 million Kilowatt hours of electricity. Each of the dam’s six spillway gates are capable of passing 12.6 million gallons of water per minute during flood conditions.
