Georgia · Striped bass, white bass and hybrid
Can you keep a striped bass, white bass and hybrid in Georgia?
Yes, with limits
Statewide
Open year-roundGeorgia counts striped bass, white bass and hybrid white-striped bass under one limit of 15 a day. There is no minimum length, but only two of those 15 may be 22 inches or longer. On Lake Lanier, Allatoona, Hartwell and West Point that pair of big fish is the binding rule, not a size floor.
Savannah River below J. Strom Thurmond Dam
Open year-roundThe strictest striped bass rule in the state: 27 inches and two fish. It applies to the river and its tributaries downstream of the dam.
coastal rivers and saltwater
Open year-roundA 22-inch minimum applies on the North Newport, Medway including Mount Hope Creek, Little Ogeechee and Ogeechee rivers, the Oconee below GA Hwy 22, the Ocmulgee below the GA Hwy 96 bridge, the Altamaha, Saint Mary’s and Satilla rivers with their tributaries, and from saltwater.
What we left out on purpose
- Georgia’s own site refused every automated request at retrieval — georgiawildlife.com answered 403 to scripts, including for its regulations PDF. The figures here come from the eRegulations edition that Georgia WRD publishes its guide through, read as raw page text rather than as a summary.
- A summarised source stated a 14-inch statewide minimum for largemouth bass. The regulation text says 12 inches statewide with named exceptions at 14 — and Lake Allatoona and Lake Hartwell are not among them. Publishing 14 across the board would have been wrong at half of this site’s Georgia waters.
- The 15-fish limit for striped bass, white bass and hybrids is a shared limit across all three, and the black bass limit of 10 is shared across largemouth, spotted, shoal and redeye. The registry records limits per species, so those numbers are the shared pool rather than a per-species allowance. Each note says so.
- The striped bass rule "only two fish of the total limit 22 inches or longer" is a cap on large fish, not a minimum size. It has no field in this schema and is carried in the note.
- Lake Hartwell straddles Georgia and South Carolina, and Georgia’s striped bass entry points to an agreement with South Carolina whose terms were not read. Anglers on the state line should check both sets of rules — South Carolina’s are on this site as well.
- Georgia also sets special rules for Lake Blue Ridge, Burton, Juliette, Blackshear, Oconee, Walter F. George, Lindsay Grace, Seminole and the Public Fishing Area lakes. None of those waters is reported on by this site, so none is carried here.
- The overall cap of 50 game fish in possession, channel and flathead catfish excepted, applies across every species listed. It has no per-species field and appears in the notes where it bites hardest.
Other species in Georgia
Where to try today
- Lake Allatoona 6/10 · Decent
- Lake Hartwell 6/10 · Decent
- Lake Lanier 6/10 · Decent
- West Point Lake 6/10 · Decent