Georgia fishing rules

Legal gear

• Hooks and barbless rules

  The guidebook does not set a statewide barbless-hook rule. Game fish, other than American shad, hickory shad, and channel, blue, or flathead catfish, may be taken only by pole and line. A sport trotline is one line or a combination of lines using fewer than 51 hooks. It must be marked with the owner's name and address and with visible buoys, submerged at least three feet, attended regularly, and removed at the end of the trip. Unmarked or unattended trotlines will be confiscated. Trotlines are illegal within one-half mile below any lock or dam, and they are not allowed on Lake Tobesofkee, any state park lake, or any Public Fishing Area. Using 51 or more hooks is commercial fishing. On designated trout waters the angler is limited to one pole. Some special trout streams, including Dukes Creek at Smithgall Woods, require artificial lures with barbless hooks and immediate release. Those are water-specific, not statewide.

• Rods per angler

  There is no statewide cap on poles and lines for game fish, with three exceptions printed in the guidebook: one pole for trout in designated trout waters, two poles on Public Fishing Areas, and two poles for sport shad fishing. An angler using more than two poles for shad must follow the commercial shad rules. Landing nets may be used to land fish that were caught legally.

• Nets

  Dip nets and cast nets may be used to take threadfin shad, gizzard shad, and blueback herring for bait. Cast nets may not be used in state park lakes or on a Public Fishing Area. A minnow seine must be shorter than 20 feet and have mesh of 3/8 inch or less. A minnow trap must be smaller than 24 inches long, 18 inches wide, or 9 inches high if it is rectangular, or smaller than 30 inches in circumference if it is cylindrical. The throat may not be larger than 1 inch, and bar mesh may not be smaller than 1/4 inch. Each trap needs a tag or float with the owner's name and address. One person may deploy up to two traps. Up to 50 nongame fish 5 inches or shorter may be kept from a minnow seine or trap. Other fish and eels in that gear must be released immediately. Seines and traps are also closed in designated trout waters and in the Etowah, Conasauga, Coosawattee, Talking Rock, and South Chickamauga reaches listed in the guidebook. In salt water, a seine may not be fished as a gill net.

• Snagging

  Snagging fish is illegal. The guidebook says it is unlawful to take any fish from public fresh water by a method other than the methods it lists, and it names snagging as illegal.

• Spearing and bow

  Spearing is a handheld spear or a weapon other than a firearm that propels a spear attached to the weapon or the person. Only nongame fish, and catfish as described below, may be speared in fresh water, and they may not be sold. Flathead and channel catfish may be speared day or night, with a light, only in the Savannah River basin. The person spearing must be fully submerged, and the spear must have barbs or another recovery device and a line to the person. Bowfishing for nongame fish is legal with barbed arrows attached by a line to the person or the bow. Poisonous or exploding heads are illegal. Arrows may not be shot into the water within 150 feet of someone using another form of recreation. Legal bow hours are sunrise to sunset, except nongame fish may be taken at night with a light on reservoirs over 500 acres. Any catfish species may be taken by bow day or night, with a light. A game fish with an open wound, possessed while bowfishing, is evidence of an illegal take. Noodling for flathead, channel, and blue catfish is open March 1–July 15, by hand only, with no scuba or breathing gear. In salt water, only flounder may be taken with a gig. Shark harvest is hook and line only, and non-offset, corrodible, non-stainless circle hooks are required except with flies or artificial lures. Red drum, as a game fish, may be fished only with pole and line.

• Bait and live transport

  Game fish may be used as live bait, where live bait is legal, if they were taken legally and the angler does not exceed the daily creel and possession limit. It is unlawful to stock or release fish or bait into public water except the water from which it was taken. Live blueback herring may not be possessed or used as bait in fresh water except the lakes and Atlantic-drainage waters named in the guidebook, including Allatoona, Lanier, Hartwell, Russell, and Clarks Hill. Possessing and fishing with live blueback herring in Alabama waters is unlawful. Set hooks and jugs may be used for catfish and nongame fish year-round, and for American and hickory shad during the shad season. They are illegal on Lake Tobesofkee, any state park lake, and any Public Fishing Area.

Bag and size limits

These are the statewide or default limits. A named lake, river, or marine area can replace every figure below.

• Black bass

  The daily limit is 10 black bass of all Micropterus species combined, and only 5 of those may be Altamaha, Bartram's, Chattahoochee, Coosa, shoal, smallmouth, Suwannee, or Tallapoosa bass. Largemouth bass have a 12-inch statewide minimum unless a water is listed. The guidebook's exceptions include 14 inches at Blackshear, Lanier, Oconee, Walter F. George, West Point, and DNR Public Fishing Area lakes unless a lake is posted otherwise, and no minimum at Blue Ridge, Burton, and Juliette. Lake Lindsay Grace releases bass from 15 to 22 inches, and only one bass may be over 22 inches. Shoal bass have a 15-inch statewide minimum, with a 15-to-20-inch release slot on the Flint River downstream of Warwick Dam. Spotted bass on Lake Lanier have a 14-inch minimum. It is unlawful to take or possess more than the daily limit, except at a residence or a commercial storage facility, and it is unlawful to keep fishing for a species after that day's limit is taken.

• Striped, white, and hybrid bass

  Striped bass, white bass, and hybrid white-striped bass share a daily limit of 15, and only two of those may be 22 inches or longer. On the North Newport, Medway including Mount Hope Creek, Little Ogeechee, Ogeechee, the Oconee below Georgia Highway 22 at Milledgeville, the Ocmulgee below the Highway 96 bridge, the Altamaha, St. Marys, Satilla, their tributaries on those sections, and in salt water, the limit is 2 and both fish must be at least 22 inches. On the Savannah River and its tributaries below Thurmond Dam the limit is 2 and both must be at least 27 inches. Lake Richard B. Russell, from Russell Dam to Hartwell Dam, and tributaries, is 2 striped bass a day and only one may exceed 34 inches. The Flint, Chattahoochee, and Spring Creek reaches named in the guidebook are closed to striped bass fishing and spear fishing from May 1 through October 31.

• Crappie, bream, catfish, and shad

  Channel and flathead catfish have no daily limit in the 2025–2026 guidebook. That same daily-limit table also covers black and white crappie, chain, grass, and redfin pickerel, American and hickory shad, and sunfish (bream). The species rows in the file that was read do not stay on separate lines, so this summary does not assign a single daily number to crappie, pickerel, shad, or bream. The possession rule on that page is clear: no more than 50 game fish from the species in that section may be possessed at one time, except channel and flathead catfish, other than at a residence or a commercial storage facility. Georgia–South Carolina boundary waters set their own bream and crappie limits. The length-limit pages do not print a statewide crappie minimum.

• Trout and walleye

  Brook, rainbow, brown, and their hybrids: 8 a day. The statewide table does not print a statewide trout minimum. Named streams replace it, including Amicalola Creek, the Chattahoochee, the Chattooga, Smithgall Woods, Smith Creek, the Toccoa, and Waters Creek. The trout page on georgiawildlife.com says Dukes Creek at Smithgall Woods is catch-and-release, artificial lures, barbless hooks, by reservation. Noontootla Creek and its tributaries are artificial lures only with a 16-inch minimum. Walleye: 8 a day on the statewide table. Public Fishing Areas can post a different walleye limit. Sturgeon may not be taken in fresh or salt water. Lake sturgeon on the Coosa River and its tributaries are closed.

Sources

• Georgia DNR 2025–2026 hunting and fishing regulations PDF
• Georgia DNR trout fishing page
• Georgia DNR SIP permit
• Georgia DNR notice that a 2026–2027 guide is posted