Monday night no dog fight report

[ranman]

No report this week,didn't feel like fighting the crowds. Did anyone else
get out in the mess this weekend?

 

[jason]

Took the kids to Chesterfrost for some swimming and panfish action...I actually left my rods at home. I had hoped to read some good posts and to fish vicariously through one of you guys! The 4th, Memorial Day, and Labor Day are the absolute worst days for a bass fisherman to be on the water.

 

[polo-dog]

I took the challenge for a few hours. I decided to check out some new areas that looked interesting to me in Harrison bay. I didn't get out until about 10 am and the boats were just starting. I tried deep on a hump, found some deep hard bottom that had some stumps on it, I also fished a bend in the creek that had tons of bait on it. The water was getting to where I thought I was going to go for a swim on a consistent basis at about 1pm and so I packed it in. I was really just out there to use my electronics and scope some new areas out. I was glad to be out there even if the "seas" had 2-3ft swells. Often in my experience if I fish far off shore, even if the boat traffic is bad I still catch a bunch of fish because the fish are used to it and aren't as affected down deep. I in fact like the challenge! I didn't catch many but I did catch a few. Nothing big to talk about or photograph but still lots of fun.

 

[jason]

My father-in-laws boat is a late model Venture and the hull will beat you to death when the water gets rough. There have been times when we were nearly ejected from it while trying to pass some of those monster cruisers.

 

[ranman]

I made it out last night to check out that ditch polo- dog found out from smith slough by the channel marker. I was in my partner's boat so we really couldn't search or fish like I wanted to but we did find a hump there and lots of fish on his crappy electronics. Get this, I caught a friggin sauger on a DD22! That was the first one I have ever caught in my life,We had to look it up in the twra book to tell if it was a walleye,saugeye, sauger, or seamonster! pretty cool to catch one though.I'm sure someone out there is actually trying to catch those on purpose,and here I am bass fishing and accidentally catch one! That was the only thing we caught out there.Got a couple of spots on the springs up from coppinger creek.No bites flipping the main channel on Hiwassee.

 

[polo-dog]

Interesting catch ranman. Sauger are great eating just like walleyes. It's cool how the springs concentrate multiple species. I caught a sauger once in the middle of the summer too but it was on Guntersville. Most of those are caught in holes out on the main river channels in the dead of winter from what I've read and heard from folks who fish for them. Maybe next time you can get out there with your electronics and see something else interesting. Do you use bouys very much? If I were you I would start at the main Hiwassee channel and go back and forth accross the ditch from east to west and drop a bouy on either the up current or down current side of the ditch. I would drop a bouy every 50 yards or so as to map out the course of the ditch and then I'd go back and bring my boat right down the middle of the ditch initially throwing a deep running crankbait on either side of the ditch and sometimes in the middle of the ditch. I would continue this until I caught a fish, then I'd either throw out another bouy at that spot to make a note as to where I was and the trajectory of the cast I made to catch the fish. I'd work the spot until I stopped catching fish then I'd pick that bouy up and keep moving down the ditch. Any spots where I caught multiple fish or where I felt something really good on the bottom I'd mark on my GPS for future reference. I would expect, just like on most structures that there will be sweet spots that hold lots of fish on a consistent basis and areas that are less productive. It's hard from the surface to tell why the fish bunch up in certain places but when and if you would get out there and snorkel you could see why. A bunch of stumps together, a little ditch running from the main ditch, a spring putting out lots of cool clear water, something different that concentrates the fish. It's interesting, I read years ago and saw pictures of bass in a tank that had nothing in it other than say one piece of wood or even just a quarter sitting on the bottom of the tank and the fish consistently would school over whatever was "different" on the bottom of the tank. Finding those different spots quickly and efficiently is what I think makes the pros able to catch fish consistently and find bigger fish.

How wide did the ditch seem? If you couldn't cast from one side to the other you may have to check out one side and then the other. You have to be sneeky about all of this too as if there are good fishermen out there at the same time they will later come over with their electronics and check it out. I know that I do, not to say that I'm good but to say that I'm curious when someone else is too. If you can do this at night first and then just use your GPS to go along the channel that is the ultimate stealthy way to keep people guessing. I don't have a WAAS enabled GPS but I still can find things again if I mark them. Let me know if you find anything else interesting.

 

[ranman]

This wasn't in Hiwassee it was the ditch you showed me on the Chick-n-mugga.
The underwater island out frome smith slough. At the upriver end of it there is another hump with a ditch between the two.We went back out last night in my boat
to look at a couple of other places and never made it over there to check it out with my "eyes".A very reliable source told me today that the bass aren't on the humps anymore? He said that they have moved off of them at least in that part of the river.I really don't know what to do now because that is just the opposite of what I thought I should be doing. go figure.

 

[jason]

http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/members/story?page=b_fea_surviving_august_0507

 

[polo-dog]

I know that at times there have been good numbers of fish on the humps up there but I don't know if they move on and off from day to day or hour to hour or season to season. I don't know if at any point there was grass growing on top of them, if there had been I would expect lots of fish. I wouldn't expect grass on them yet with what I know of the grass situation so far. Does anyone know if the humps above and below Sale Creek ever had any grass on them?