Report for 8-5

[jason]

Well, I hope Ranman did not take my advice on the brushhog or locations...both went out the window Saturday. With the overcast, frontal conditions, the bass were not on the logs. In addition, they were definitely not in the mood for "big-n-bulky" baits. After two hours of getting skunked, we moved past the Hiwassee Island and headed upriver on the Tennessee to a large grassbed that gets very little fishing pressure. The spot is on the left where an old pump station (I think that's what it is) sits on the bank with a series of large bundles of telephone poles for tie-offs. With trial and error, we narrowed the baits down to a Yum Garrett Mega tube in green pumpkin/gold flake and the ZTOO in arkansas shiner. I used the tube and my father-in-law chose the fluke "because a tube doesn't look like fish food"...when I began catching better fish behind him he changed his mind. We fished both unweighted on bleeding hooks and used a twitch-twitch-pause retrieve over the submerged weeds. This is the first time this year we've been to this area and I was shocked at the water clarity. You could see the bass (and monster carp) sitting on top of weeds down to four feet or more. Oddly enough, the night before I had planned to respool the Vanish on my spinning reel with braid and never got around to it. Anyway, to make a long story short, the bite was real strong for several hours and then the rain came...and the bass went.

 

[polo-dog]

Great report Jason. Is the grass milfoil or is it Niad? Is that tube a solid tube, otherwise, unweighted how could you cast it? The water clarity is interesting. Did you catch any of the fish that you saw first or were they too spooky to catch that way? How deep is the grass growing up there? Is it all submerged or does some of it come to the surface? About how far up the river was the grassbed? Did you know about it before or did you just find it? I may never get up that way but I would like to look at the area on my maps and see what it looks like topographically. Is the grass on the flat near mile marker 502 accross from Garrison light? If you would rather not get that specific that's okay. I'm just curious. Do you know what the surface temp was in the river? The water temp in Wolftever creek tonight with the rain and clouds was down from almost 90 to 84 degrees, much more comfortable. Did you ever get a map from the map store, I thought that it was you that was going to go by there.

 

[jason]

This grass, and most of the grass we fish, has a surface mat in depths of 1-2ft and then becomes submerged in 4 or more feet of water. It grows about a foot or two off the bottom like a thick carpet and is in stalks with star shaped leaves. The Yum tube is 4" long and on a 7' spinning rod with 14lb Vanish it cast great and sank slowly. I would count it down about 6 to 8 seconds and twitch it a time or two and let it fall during the pause. All the fish we saw were on the move as soon as they detected the boat or the motion of a cast.

Unfortunately, I never got by the map store and the only map I have access to is in my father-in-law's boat. Ranman may be able to tell you exactly where I was at...you can't miss it. If you continue up the Tennessee from Hiwassee Island, you will pass a bluff wall on the left followed by a grassy cove on the left. The channel curves right and the spot is not very far up on the left. Just past it on the left is a huge inlet with lots of docks...that is where we were heading when we got sidetracked by those vertical telephone pole tie-offs. They sit on the edge of the channel and we had caught several fish there late last fall. If you move in towards the bank, there is a narrow ditch that paralells the channel and it has a submerged weed bed in about 4-6ft of water.

 

[ranman]

It's between Richland creek and Armstrong slough. Garrison light is where I started last Thursday and didn't catch anything.I have fished up there before about two years ago but I didn't do very well so I haven't been back since.

 

[ranman]

Has the dead grass cleared yet and was there much current up there?

 

[jason]

We saw occasional clumps of brown stuff out in the channel. The main channel had a pretty good current to it but where we fished it seemed fairly slow.

 

[jason]

Ranman, have you tried any of the spots I mentioned around Hiwassee Island? Or the brushhog?

 

[ranman]

Nope and nope.I haven't done alot of flipping this year because most of my time on the water has been searching time.Brushhogs and flipping takes to long when your in a hurry!emoSmile Maybe thats my problem I need to commit to an area and slow down and pick it apart with a jig or something,I just don't have enough confidence
in any one of my spots to slow down and not try to cover water.Not my favorite way to fish.

 

[jason]

Yeah, I have a hard time convincing my father-in-law to slow down. He prefers to spend the day fan-casting a spinnerbait whereas I enjoy methodically picking a piece of structure apart.