Nick-A-Jack Tailwaters 3-17-2006

Chattanooga Fishing Forum

Help Support Chattanooga Fishing Forum:

BigFishGuide

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
399
Location
New Hope, Tennessee
Fished Friday morning and what a beautiful day it was. I'm back on the live Bait again which was fairly easy to get this time. Matter of fact there may be too much bait. Threw the cast net one time and caught about 25 or 30 shad and threw the cast net again and I caught so many shad in the net that I could hardly pick the net up out of the water I'm guessing 1,000 shad or more needless to say we had plenty of bait. TVA was not generating so we drifted live shad around the walls for bass untill TVA started generating we caught 4 or 5 bass. TVA cut the water on around 8:00am and we started drifting the shad around the tail race. We caught a drum on just about every drift HUGE drum 20 to 25 lb drum after about the 20th. drum No Rock's or Hybrids and getting tired of feeding the drum I put the Umbrella rig to work and we caught 1 Rock fish about 15 lbs. The fish just haven't moved up yet. The shad are there and it's just a matter of time the Rock's and Hybrids should be right behind them Cleaning up what the Drum are leaving.
 

Attachments

  • 03-17-06_0918.jpg
    03-17-06_0918.jpg
    57.5 KB
Nice fish there BFG, I bet that one put up a little bit of a fight.emoThumbsup Jmax
 
That is a nice fish! This cool weather this week may slow the migration but if the bait is there in huge numbers then it is only a matter of time..Remember, striper have huge appetites and are not far from FOOD!
 
BFG, I noticed your HUGE bait tank in the pic you posted, I have been wanting one of those for a long time now. Can you give some info on yours? How many gallons is it, how many threadfins will it hold and for how long, how does it do in the heat of mid-summer, when it's full I would think it would affect boat handling, any info? I have been looking at the non-insulated 30 gallon tanks, what do you think of them?
 
tank

Yeah I am with DRC, give us the skinny on your bait tank set up. I have been wanting to fab up one at home that can double as a catfish holding tank.
 
Its a Super Bait Tank II and they make 3 sizes 30 gal., 40 gal, and a 50 gal. I've got the 40 gallon. When I bought mine it was $500.00 plus $100.00 for shipping. It has a three stage filter on it

1 skimmer to remove scales and large debris in the water
2 filter to remove smaller particles from the water
3 charcoal filter to remove ammonia that the shad give off

Depending on the size of the shad and the water temp determines how many you can hold. The smaller the shad and the cooler the water the more you can hold. During the summer months I add Ice to cool the water down to around 65 deg. F which is the Ideal temp to hold shad. I put the tank in the front of the boat which really doesn't effect the handling that much I've got a really wide boat. Putting the boat on the trailer with it full of water and shad tends to make it a littel diffucult if you dont hit the trailer just right. My tank is insulalted (I would not purchase an uninsulated tank) water temp is critical when keeping bait, and there are several things that you must do to keep shad alive for long periods or during the hot summer months. I have kept shad alive for at least a week in my tank. Water movement in the tank is critical as well as ammonia removal. I use Shad saver in additon to the filters it removes the ammonia and calms the shad as well as puts a slime coat and hardens the scales on the shad. In addition to all this the pump has a port on the bottom to inject air into the water through the pump so you have tiny air bubbles in the water and the shad love that. Kinda mimics the turbines and how they areate the water just on a smaller scale. Here's a few web sites that you can visit for other information. That's where I got my information when I was reaserching my tank.

http://www.fishing-boating.com/livewellsystems/
http://www.hookedoncatfish.com/Baittank.html
http://www.wmi.org/bassfish/bassboard/stripers/T4560.htm

There's all kinds of information on tanks The Super and Grayline are proabbly the best in my opinion.

Sorry about the book here.
 
Thanks for the post Berry...

That'll give Minner something else to work on, hope he doesn't screw it up like he did his prop..... oooooh booyeah! emoPoke
 

Latest posts

Back
Top