Big Cats - Wilson/Pickwick 9/4/06 Minner-Bprice

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Bprice

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Big Cove, AL
The Rocket City Catmasters, Minner and I headed west to Wilson and Pickwick Lakes this morning to get started practicing for the SCA Classic later this month and the Cabelas King Kat Classic in October. We put in at Safety Harbor in Sheffield, AL. It was an absolutely beautiful Alabama day, and ended up being a great day of fishing.

We have not had much experience "Lake" fishing, as we mostly fish the riverine areas of Wheeler for our big cats. We decided to start by anchoring over 65-80 ft of water at the mouths of coves, in which we found baitfish. Once we felt the boat was in perfect position we anchored and papered the water with 7 heavy cat rods, all rigged up with cut skipjack. There was no current to be pulled until 1:00 CST, so we knew this might be slow, and it was. In the first 4 hours, we only picked up 1 Eatin' size fish. We decided to abandon this pattern and begin to drift to try to locate some fish for when the current began. We headed to some bluffs, and trolled at depths ranging from 45 ft to 108 ft. For those of you who haven't been on these lakes, they are like big bathtubs, not many defined drops or ledges...

Allen ended up catching a fat 12 lb fish... it wasn't a big one, but it was the beginning of our limit, which in these tourneys will be 7 fish. We continued our drift, with no luck and decided to hunker over the slope in which we caught the 12. Quickly I picked up a 14 lber. Then the current cranked on... within minutes I had a beautiful 39 lb Blue, nail my skipjack head! After about a 2 minute fight we got her in the boat, snapped a pic, weighed her, and let her swim to the depths...and immediately after Allen picked up a 24 lber on a suspended rig sitting in 60 ft of water over 75 ft, this ended up being a hot zone, as we picked up several more 5-10 lbers off this area. Everything slowed down as we suffered with jetskis and pleasure rigs running right up next too us. Man, some folks don't have courtesy. Then my new Tiger Shakespeare Rod bent over, and after a quick fight we pulled in our last keeper fish of the day, and nice 26 lber.

Our keeper fish weighed in at 125 lbs approximately. We think we need an average of 25 lbs per fish to finish in the money in both tourneys, so we have some work to do.

Our day was totally dependent on current. I feel like what we did before the current wasn't a waste of time, as it located a hot spot for us. The area we caught all the fish, had bait balls all over it, and was very close to cove. Seems they are getting ready to pile up. All fish hit extemely aggressively. Hope something out of this report can help ya'll Chickamaugers!

Hope everyone enjoys the pics, i had to doctor a couple... Hope that doesn't offend anyone!
 

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Great Report BPrice and Minner - Sounds like you found the spot! I'm glad to see those big blues thriving from TN to North Alabama. I bet your glad you had your vitamins this morning to help you reel em all up! emoThumbsup
 
Mike has told me about you guys and how smart you are with the big cats. Congrats on the good fishing. Do you fish suspended much for these big cats? I guess if you are fishing with 7 rods, pulling up 1 or 2 isn't a bad idea at all for some of those cats lying in the middle of the water column. I know it's not realistic at the tennessee aquarium, but whenever I see the blues or flatheads sitting right in the middle of the tank, it makes me wonder if that's why I don't catch any fish sometimes fishing on the bottom. Tell me some more if you get the chance about suspending your baits and when you think a good time to do that is.

Sam
 
Dhaun, I did take my vitamins, and man, thank goodness I did... Gee whiz thanks Hulk! :)

Sam,

Allen and I have been toying with the idea of leaving a bait or two suspended for some time now, we did it on the last SCA tourney, and didn't get any fish. It makes sense that they would suspend, especially when they are following and possibly attacking balls of bait. Those hits were the most aggressive. There was no rhyme or reason to the depth at which we set them at, just made an initial assumption, and it ended up working well. I kind of think of them as bass, they'll come up for a bait, but will rarely come down... or atleast that is my experience. We use a float rig now, that Allen came up with, PM me and I'll give you some details.

Thanks for all the thumbs up ya'll...
 
The flow on Chickamauga didn't start until 1pm today either and some of the guys had a rough day because of it. It sounds like you were in the right spot once the river got moving however. Good job in not getting dicouraged by a slow morning. Did you know that the flow wasn't going to start until late? Sometimes if I don't know if the flow will come it gets me frustrated and I quit or go looking for other fish to catch and all I had to do was wait for the flow. I tend to check the TVA website any more when I'm going to fish the main lake because it really does make a huge difference!
 
I have read articles from some blue cat tournament pros that when there is flow,especially heavy flow,that blues stay on the bottom. When little or no flow is present they tend to suspend. They guys that fish for the monsters out in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers rarely fish off the bottom because there is always heavy flow there. Drumking and I have experienced blues going down for bait many times. We will be fishing bumping bottom and the line will go slack as the fish go down and eat it and return to where they were suspended. It is difficult to catch them when they do this too. When they start doing this we have found that you crank up to where they are suspended and it is easier to catch them.

Cheez
 
cheez - 9/5/2006 2:36 AM

I have read articles from some blue cat tournament pros that when there is flow,especially heavy flow,that blues stay on the bottom. When little or no flow is present they tend to suspend. They guys that fish for the monsters out in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers rarely fish off the bottom because there is always heavy flow there. Drumking and I have experienced blues going down for bait many times. We will be fishing bumping bottom and the line will go slack as the fish go down and eat it and return to where they were suspended. It is difficult to catch them when they do this too. When they start doing this we have found that you crank up to where they are suspended and it is easier to catch them.

Cheez
Click to expand...

Cheez you are right, most of the time our fish come off the bottom. Lake fishing is a whole new ballgame for us and we are just barely starting to figure it out. Heck, the last two trips I have made over to Wilson/Pickwick I zeroed both times. What is different you ask? I read the articles in In-fisherman and others about lake fishing and it seems the trend is to follow old river channels, heck, cats were there before why wouldn't they be there 100 years later except now there is an extra 40' of water on top. I had to explain this to my brother-in-law last night. If you think back through TVA history the Shoals areas were exacty that, shoals. There was no defined channel and made navigation impossible which eventually lead to the series of locks dug out and pulled barges via mules. Then come 1918 the US government decided to dam the river to make the shoals area navigable for water traffic for WWI and the nitrate plants. My point is, it not like other parts of the TN river where there was a river channel that was flooded. It's made it difficult for me to find defining features for cats and shad to hang around. Maybe I am over thinking it, I don't know.
 
Here's what I tell folks.... catfish are exactly like trout. emoScratch "Huh," you might ask? Trout like to lay in deep pools, behind rocks, in logjams and various other "ambush" points where they can easily suck up whatever drifts by. Catfish do the exact same thing... except rather than 2 feet of water, they're in 20 to 60 feet of water. But the key is always to find those "ambush" points where they're waiting on something to drift by. I think the same is true... lake or tailwater. As far "suspended" fish... I might occasionally suspend a rod in the lake. But I never have much faith in it. I believe a suspended fish is a resting fish, NOT feeding. A fish on the bottom is feeding. And since I drift (or troll) normally, that suspended rod usually causes me more problems than it is worth. If I anchored down it wouldn't be an issue, but invariably that suspended rod/line gets in the way of my serious "bottom" fishing as I move around.
 
Interesting takes on fishing for suspending fish.

I think I like what Richard said about fishing a suspended rig while anchored. It does seem like it could cause some problems while drifting. When you are fishing 6 or 7 rods while anchored, it seems like a good idea to suspend one of those rigs. You pretty well have those cats covered on the bottom anyway with the other rods. Fishing is such an interesting thing as you can constantly study and learn. I think I'll take it on as a life long project.

Thanks for all the info. I think it is just plain awesome that catfishing is becoming more popular. I think in the end it will create even better fishing as people continue to put pressure on netters, etc, to take care of the population.
 
I have caught as many as 75 pounds of bluecat suspended nearly 20 feet off bottom before. More than once. I have a time or two watched fish that were suspended about 10 feet off bottom and they wouldn't hit a rig bounced off bottom, but if you cranked up around 3 or 4 turns on a level wind, you would immediately get bit. Of course, I've caught my share of catfish right on bottom too. My theory is that the fish are either on shallow or deep or somewhere in between.emoBigsmile emoGeezer
My definition of a theory - a supposition based upon ignorance of the subject matter.emoUpsmile
 
drumking - 9/5/2006 8:58 PM
I have a time or two watched fish that were suspended about 10 feet off bottom and they wouldn't hit a rig bounced off bottom, but if you cranked up around 3 or 4 turns on a level wind, you would immediately get bit.
Click to expand...
I bet I've done that exact thing 200 times this year alone... have yet to get bit by one of those "suspended" fish. Maybe they'll ONLY eat chicken breasts on the bottom and those suspended fish want hot dogs? emoBigsmile
 
Minner I remember seeing that massive livewell ya'll built and if you fill it up with fish you will surely be in the money.
Good luck!

Cheez
 

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