SpurHunter, Nick Dam, Crawdads, 1-21-12, Minner

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SpurHunter

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
15,863
Location
Cleveland TN
Me and ol Minner needed to meet up to trade some stuff and decided going fishing was the best way to make that happen. Nick dam is about half way for both of us, and we had high hopes of giant fish of all species. I felt good that I got there on time and was prepping the boat to launch in the lightning storm, when Allen called to say, "Where is this dang ramp"?? Seems he was on the wrong side of the dam. emoLaugh emoLaugh </p>

20 mins later, he was there, after I got the boat floating, and was taking cover in the crap-house due to tornado strength winds and lightning. We camped out a few more minutes and took of to claim our trophy fish. </p>

While searching for bait, we trolled TN rigs, Foley spoons, jigging spoons and fwe other baits.We never found the bait, or a bite. Even though they were spilling all gates, and running all turbines, I just KNEW if we could get up to the face of the dam we would hammer the fish. Im not sure if yall have tried to maneuver a 24' toon in that kind of current, near large concrete structure, but its a serious challenge. I found some diamonds while cleaning the boat, that apparently Allen squeezed out of his keister while a little nervous during that ordeal. We made it to the face, got tied off, and didnt get a bite. :( </p>

We didnt stay too long there before deciding it was just not worth the nerves to stay with no fish biting. With the back-flo just getting back out of there was another nail-biter. </p>

Off down-river we went, looking for a good place to catfish, we know how to do that right?? Set up at a prime location, wait.....wait....wait, nothing. Oh hell with it, lets go back up river and try catfish in the slack water. Allen was tasked with pulling the back anchor, except he was being a pansy and almost lost the rope, luckily I tried a buoy to it quickly before it pulled him in. We got lined up in the current a little better this time and heaved....haul, grunted and cussed at why the thing would come up. Then realized, it WAS up, but it had a HUGE ball of frayed tug-boat line hung in it. While trying to get it freed up, we realized there were crawdads crawling all in this ball of mess! We foolishly hauled the few hundred pounds of the line on boat, full of clams, bugs, mud and worked on picking through it. We got 6 small ones, and thought, heck yeah we will catch SOMETHING with these!</p>

Headed to the dead-lock, drown the crawdads, catfish baits, and spoons....without a single bite. We called it a day as the sun was JUST about to shine on us, we were both feeling the rain creep into our rain-suits by this time anyways. </p>

Maybe next time Allen. </p>

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Sorry for the non catching day. (made for a funny story though) Thanks for sharing. Better luck next time. See you on the water.emoThumbsup
 
drumking - 1/22/2012 6:30 AM

Note to DK. Never go fishing with Spur below dams. emoTongue emoBigsmile emoGeezer

Second that!! Tying up at the face with the gates open- priceless. Sorry the catching wasn't working, but you should be able to pass the captains lic. for pontoon boats. emoPoke

Regards, Labman
 
I must say if you were close to the gates and from your story should not have been up and around those gates they have a rolling action and will pull your boat under and tumble it and basically grind it up. If you were nervous then obviously in a dangerous situation.
 
FWIW- We were at the turbines tied up not the gates. Although not the wisest decision we didn't go "full blown retard" (Tropic Thunder, 2008)

It sucked, my "new" Frogg Toggs leaked like 5 day old diaper and it took me the rest of the afternoon to get the chill out of my bones.
 
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BigFishGuide - 1/22/2012 8:51 PM I must say if you were close to the gates and from your story should not have been up and around those gates they have a rolling action and will pull your boat under and tumble it and basically grind it up. If you were nervous then obviously in a dangerous situation.
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I do appreciate the concern Berry, but no, we were not near the spill gates. Although we watched a boat fish up there, we were not going to attempt that trick. FWIW, that was the only boat that seemed to catch fish though. Go figure. </p>

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