dog-fight 8/18

[Guest]

winning wieght 16lbs 6 oz. ...... big fish 6lb 14 oz....also had a 5 pounder and 2 good keepers...this tourn. blasts off out of 58 boat dock up on the hiawassi.....all fish were caught on 10 in worms

 

[ranman]

Did you catch them on the Hiwasse or the TN?

 

[Guest]

hiawassi

 

[jason]

Lately, the largemouth seem to prefer larger soft plastics. The magnum size lizards are working well but I haven't tried 10" worms...yet .

 

[polo-dog]

sm7mag, thanks for the report. Do you know at about what depth these fish were caught. We have been debating whether or not the fish tend to hold shallow or deep in the summer. Some think that many of us fish too shallow and some say that we fish too deep. I would bet that there's a good chance that the larger fish, 4-8lbers tend to hold deeper than the vast majority of the 12-16 inchers that most of us are catching. I would venture a guess that the bigger fish are found in the 10 to 20 ft range if not deeper. If one can find where they are holding one could catch multiple large fish. All four of the fish were as big as the biggest ones that I was catching schooling a couple of days ago. Do you know how deep these fish were caught?

 

[jason]

Don't leave us hanging, sm7magemoBigsmile ! No doubt many of us will be trying the 10" worm tomorrow. I just dug through my soft plastics and found some big worms from Zoom in junebug and Berkely in red shad. What color was used? What kind of retrieve?

BTW, that's an awesome rifle. With the cost of deer processing at $55, I decided to switch last season from 7mag to 280 in an attempt to hang onto a little more meat. I miss that knockdown power but it saved me a pound or two of deerburger.

 

[polo-dog]

I think that the size of the worm may be part of the puzzle but the depth is a bigger piece. What do you say sm7mag?

 

[Guest]

these fish were caught in 5 to 8 feet of water ....the worms were texas rigged....fairly light sinker...3/16 oz..... fished very slow...almost like winter time fishin

 

[polo-dog]

Near deep water? Edge of flat? In stumps? Outside bend of river/creek? I don't want to know the specific location but am looking for a game plan for bigger fish that I can use if I choose to look for bigger fish in my part of the lake(lower end). If that's too much info to give up don't answer but it's fun to try to figure it out. Also, was it mostly larger fish in the area or did you catch a bunch of small ones in the same area? It seems to me that the big ones don't tend to "hang" with the smaller ones in the summer.

 

[Guest]

we were fishing rocky bottom area....wasnt very close to deep water...deepest may get bout 10ft...no small fish were caught in this vicinity...

 

[ranman]

Does the current or water level have anything to do with that hole being on or not?
I mostly hole fish because I cant put a pattern together that will hold up from a Sunday afternoon practice to a Monday night Tournament.How do you solve that problem with the way they jack with the water levels on the Hiwassee all the time?
What do you do when there is no current at all?

 

[polo-dog]

It's great that you have a big fish spot. I hope that it stays productive for you. I figured that there would be few smaller fish mixed in. Is it the deepest water in the area? Sometimes hard bottom all by it's self will attract fish especially if most of the bottom in the area is soft. That's why if you buy a bottom machine, in my mind, if you can't differentiate between hard and soft bottom, you are missing a lot.

 

[jason]

When the water was down in the winter, we found several rocky areas on shallow flats and points. A couple of them had Christmas trees anchored to them with cinder blocks. Now that the water is up, we've also found that I didn't take very good notes concerning their exact location. Garmin's e-Trex Legend C hand held GPS is on my wish-list for the fall.

 

[polo-dog]

A GPS is a great Christmas gift to ask for but be sure that it's WAAS enabled. Also a cheap digital camera can really help you visualize and remember where thing are and what's down there. I got my digital camera so that when I take friends out fishing, I can take pictures and email them to them. It helps me remember the great times that we have on the water and since I almost always release everything that I catch so people beleive me more if I have something to prove when I tell people about the fish I catch.

 

[Guest]

i dont pay much attn. to current being pulled unless i am fishing down on the tenn..the water is just a little deeper around this spot but this one particular area , i catch5 to 10 fish or more a year in the 4 to 6lb range....as far as the water being raised and lowered...i prefer it to be as low as possible in the summertime

 

[polo-dog]

It's interesting what you describe as a fish magnet. The major "calling card" in your description seems to be the hard bottom. Is it surrounded by lots of other hard bottom areas or is it an area that is "different". I have seen studies in In-Fisherman mag. where they talk about bass being attracted by things that are different on the bottom even if the difference is commonplace in other parts of lake. They published pictures of bass in a large fish tank with the only thing in the tank was a group of fish and a quarter sitting on the bottom. They claimed that if they moved the quarter around the tank that the fish would school around wherever the quarter was in the tank. Maybe I ought to throw a quarter or two out and see if I can attract some fish.

 

[jason]

sm7mag, I can understand your hesitation to give up your winning worm color on the board. If you don't mind, could you PM or email it to me. I don't fish the dogfights and I'm good at keeping a secretemoBigsmile.

 

[ranman]

Giant nuclear freak bad attitude bluegill like junebugemoCool

 

[Guest]

hot volcano...this worm is only made by gill-raker.....it is a brown one side. pinkish -orange on the other-

 

[ranman]

what do you believe the fish think that is?