spuds704
Well-known member
Porthos was kind enough to give me a few words of wisdom about sallies below chick dam. I decided to give it a try below nick dam. Got there around 10:30, temp was around 50 and rising, water temp was 48 to 50. Went to the wing wall that separates the turbines and the flood gates to get rigged up. Was going to float large shiners down the current breaks for sallies. I got Joyce baited up and told her to cast it over by the wall and wait for a thump. While I was rigging up she said "its just swimming around and won't go down." So I put a split shot on and told her to drop it to the bottom and then crank it up a couple of turns. I went back to rigging up my rod I heard her gasp, I turned around and her rod was bowed up and I thought she was hung up or it was a drum. So after several minutes of her grunting and me telling her that it was 6 pound test and a small drop shot hook and to just hold pressure and let the rod wear it down. And then, up comes a nice small mouth, that I thought was going to be a drum. So I fell all over the boat, trying to get the dip net and get it extended and after what seemed like forever, I got it in the net. It weighed in at 4lb. 5 oz. I thought, if there's one there, then there's probably several. The water level was up about three feet above normal and the current was really rolling after the heavy rains from a couple days before. The current, coming from the turbine side was coming around the wing wall and pushing bait around the wall back toward the flood gates. But after a few minutes it changed and started to run the other way. After a half hour without another bite we started down river, floating shiners, dragging shiners on a Carolina rig on the bottom, ripping spoons and never got a bite. The extra current flow was too much to work it like I intended, and we had to change our tactics. We beat the banks with jigs, cb, jb, and shaky head. Joyce caught two small spots and a large mouth on a fat albert, in the one to two lb. range, I caught a drum, three stripe, and one skip jack on a jerk bait and a square bill. The stripe were all around the two pound range and scattered, never caught more than one fish in any area. But just seeing Joyce catch the biggest fish she's ever caught made a great trip.
