Put in at Pinhook again early this morning after work. Thank goodness it was my last night of the crazy shift and starting this week I'll be back on track. But anyway...was on the water at 5:30 a.m. Made a run towards Watts Bar dam and fished the area starting about the Dangerous Water sign and from there up to the locks. They were running just one turbin for the early part of the morning. It was very calm out there. Caught a chunky Largemouth on T-Rig worm up on the rocks and had one smack at my Spit n Image after it broke daylight. Was throwing my favorite little Fat Free Shad and hooked into a 1 1/2 pound Crappie. That was a nice surprise. Then hooked into something BIG. All I can tell you is I felt it hit hard and start pulling immediately. Drag was singing out and then it came unbuttoned. Coulda been anything down there.
Then around 9:00 this morning they kicked in another turbin and magic happened down there. Started seeing lots of fish breaking the surface and thought they were stripe. Got all excited and actually boated a few stripe and white bass together. Then we noticed there were lots of fish breaking around us and stripe were few and far between. Made a tackle change to a Kastmaster 1/2 oz spoon and hooked into a good Smallmouth that came unbuttoned when it went airborne. Then hooked into another good fish that broke my line. I think it might have been a really good stripe. I only had a smaller spoon handy and had to throw it on my ultra lite rod/reel I had in the boat. That's when we figured out what was actually running. SkipJack. All of them were about the same general 14-18 inch size. They fought good and were fun for atleast a couple of hours. I bet we hooked over 30 of them and lost nearly every one when they'd jump. We boated just a handful of them. Which I didn't mind anyway. The water down there was really dirty looking. I'm use to a good 3+ feet visibility from Watts Bar and visibility down there was maybe 8-12 inches.
Lots of people were fishing today...holiday weekend and all. There were some awful rude folks out on the water today though. We were having a hard time staying with the schools of fish and we were only 20-30 yards from the rip rap on the rough side down near the wall or whatever is down there. And we were actually having boats come running their outboards that would go between us and the rocks! Or close enough to us on the other side that we could have easily flipped a lure in their boat. We did see a professional fisherman out there that drove up on one of the points and fished. He might even post here. Driving a big green FLW Tour #6 Fuji Film boat. His truck was at the pinhook ramp too. White truck with sponsors all over it and his name airbrushed on both sides. Can't recall his name though. Seems like it might have been Shane or Shawn somebody. Just thought that was kinda neat.
Then around 9:00 this morning they kicked in another turbin and magic happened down there. Started seeing lots of fish breaking the surface and thought they were stripe. Got all excited and actually boated a few stripe and white bass together. Then we noticed there were lots of fish breaking around us and stripe were few and far between. Made a tackle change to a Kastmaster 1/2 oz spoon and hooked into a good Smallmouth that came unbuttoned when it went airborne. Then hooked into another good fish that broke my line. I think it might have been a really good stripe. I only had a smaller spoon handy and had to throw it on my ultra lite rod/reel I had in the boat. That's when we figured out what was actually running. SkipJack. All of them were about the same general 14-18 inch size. They fought good and were fun for atleast a couple of hours. I bet we hooked over 30 of them and lost nearly every one when they'd jump. We boated just a handful of them. Which I didn't mind anyway. The water down there was really dirty looking. I'm use to a good 3+ feet visibility from Watts Bar and visibility down there was maybe 8-12 inches.
Lots of people were fishing today...holiday weekend and all. There were some awful rude folks out on the water today though. We were having a hard time staying with the schools of fish and we were only 20-30 yards from the rip rap on the rough side down near the wall or whatever is down there. And we were actually having boats come running their outboards that would go between us and the rocks! Or close enough to us on the other side that we could have easily flipped a lure in their boat. We did see a professional fisherman out there that drove up on one of the points and fished. He might even post here. Driving a big green FLW Tour #6 Fuji Film boat. His truck was at the pinhook ramp too. White truck with sponsors all over it and his name airbrushed on both sides. Can't recall his name though. Seems like it might have been Shane or Shawn somebody. Just thought that was kinda neat.
