Carl Guffey
Well-known member
<font face="georgia,palatino" size="2">We fished a benefit tournament out of the dam on Watts Bar. It was very interesting because neither one of us had fished Watts Bar at all this year, not once. We went to our first stop and started catching fish immediately. We saw some fish breaking near shore and eased over and started casting to them. First cast I caught a 17.5 inch smallmouth at least three pounds. Second cast, 16.5 inch smallmouth. Third cast, 16 inch smallie. Three cast, almost 9 pounds of fish and I had to let them all go. The day started on a grand note, but was a bit exasperating. That said, we caught 6 fish at the first stop, not one keeper, all on top water. Pulled out and started fishing down a bluff. I missed the first fish which looked to be a keeper, but not the second. It did keep. We caught a couple more down the bluff, no keepers. </font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">The sun was getting up and a little brighter so we moved again and started fishing ledges. David caught a short fish on a carolina rig. Of course it was short. I just kept changing colors on a jig and finally found one that worked and caught another keeper at our first deep stop. Fished there for a little longer and moved on to our next couple of stops. We worked deep cover all the way up to White's Creek and finally caught two more there. Again, they were short.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">It was about 1 then so we started working our way back to weigh-in. We just kept stopping on areas that we had hit once hoping that the fish would pull back up and feed. They didn't and we finally made it back to the location that we had started the day on. Made the first pass, caught a fish,short. Kept fishing, stuck a fish, it kept. Looked up and the sky was turning a neat shade of blue,black,purple. We decided it was the right time to go load the boat. We were right, storm hit just as we loaded the boat and got everything put up.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">We went to the weigh in. We met Lowdrag's brother who had locked through to the chick. He only had two fish so I wasn't feeling to bad about having three. That changed while I was in the weigh in line. I had been standing there a few minutes watching the scales and I turned around and looked down. The tournament eventual winner was standing behind me and it looked like he had a torpedo boat stuffed in his bag. I just dropped out of line and walked down to the water and released my fish. No need to stress them more.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">The winning weight was 22.2 lbs. with a 6.2 big fish. Which meant the rest of his fish were at a four pound average. Second was 19.7 and came from the Thief Neck area. There were some good bags brought back from Chickamauga but nothing to beat what was caught on the "Bar".</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">The sun was getting up and a little brighter so we moved again and started fishing ledges. David caught a short fish on a carolina rig. Of course it was short. I just kept changing colors on a jig and finally found one that worked and caught another keeper at our first deep stop. Fished there for a little longer and moved on to our next couple of stops. We worked deep cover all the way up to White's Creek and finally caught two more there. Again, they were short.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">It was about 1 then so we started working our way back to weigh-in. We just kept stopping on areas that we had hit once hoping that the fish would pull back up and feed. They didn't and we finally made it back to the location that we had started the day on. Made the first pass, caught a fish,short. Kept fishing, stuck a fish, it kept. Looked up and the sky was turning a neat shade of blue,black,purple. We decided it was the right time to go load the boat. We were right, storm hit just as we loaded the boat and got everything put up.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">We went to the weigh in. We met Lowdrag's brother who had locked through to the chick. He only had two fish so I wasn't feeling to bad about having three. That changed while I was in the weigh in line. I had been standing there a few minutes watching the scales and I turned around and looked down. The tournament eventual winner was standing behind me and it looked like he had a torpedo boat stuffed in his bag. I just dropped out of line and walked down to the water and released my fish. No need to stress them more.</font></p>
<font face="Georgia" size="2">The winning weight was 22.2 lbs. with a 6.2 big fish. Which meant the rest of his fish were at a four pound average. Second was 19.7 and came from the Thief Neck area. There were some good bags brought back from Chickamauga but nothing to beat what was caught on the "Bar".</font></p>
