Chickamauga 4/18

[polo-dog]

Got to go fishing on two different boats with two different fishing buddies today. Jmax left me three PM's that I didn't get until the AM. So I called him and he was on the lake checking things out for the Wal-Mart tourney this weekend. He came by and picked me up and we went to a couple of places to see if we could get on some good fish. We fished for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours and only caught a couple of dinks, par for the course for this time of day after 9:30 in the morning. Jmax dropped me off and my freind Jerry was ready to go. Jmax and I had seen some bait movement out on the main lake and I cast netted some shiners, I believe that they were technically Emerald Shiners and we were set. I had decided that we should go for fish that would be more active and I hoped that the catfish would be ready. They were somewhat ready, we caught two or three small ones, 2-5 lbs at our initial stop( underwater bluff). Then we decided to hit Sequoyah. I think of the spot that we fish for bass there as a summer/winter area and there were only a few small spotted bass there. I scouted a couple of new places there and we caught a few cats there and Jerry broke off what must have been the biggest of the day at boatside, we never saw the fish but it pulled much harder than the others that we caught. End of a bluff were the new spot found and I will try there again. All day it seemed like there wasn't much flow but at about 4 pm the water really picked up. I knew that the fish at the underwater bluff would turn on with the increase so we ran back to it and I was not surprised that we got a double on some bigger fish right on our first casts to my "secret hole". We finished up the bait with perfect timing and made it home in time that neither of us is in the "dog house". All in all we got around 10 blue cats 5-10 lbs and a couple channel cats. Also about 8-10 spotted bass. It was a good day of fishing. Here are some pics.

 

[jason]

Nice fish, Polo. If we ever get on the water together, I'd like to do a combo outing of bass-n-cats.

 

[polo-dog]

Bass until they quit then cats, that's my usual routine. We could have a great time. If we can get livies we can really catch fish all day long. Let's do it. When are you out of school?

 

[JerDog]

Polo-dog,

You seeing any threadfins out on the lake or back in the rivers? They of course are thick below the dam, and BIG ONES, but how about in your neck-of-the-woods?

 

[polo-dog]

I have seen lots of movement that I assume is threadfins but I thought that the school that I threw to was threadfins Tues. but they were shiners. There have not been bait balls on the surface yet and I only see flits frequently but I think that the schools are moving a lot. I may get out and throw my net some tomorrow and I'll let you know. The baits are pretty big right now and they may be too big for smaller bass, but maybe I am wrong. I just haven't netted any small shad in the past few weeks. A couple of weeks ago there were quite a few hickory or gizzard shad back in the creek. I'm not sure which species they were but they were too big to be threadfins. I'll see what I can see in the next few days if possible. If there is so much bait still at the dams I would expect that the shad in the lakes will have run way up the creeks also. I may start looking there if there are none by the house.