striperchase
Well-known member
Launched the boat at about 6:30 and headed to the wing wall for some bait. There was somebody tied up to the wall fishing so we tried to get bait at the number 1 turbine by the rocks. I threw the net for about 15 mins catching nothing but nice white bass, no threadfin so we decided to sneak in the trash hole behind the other boat tied up. We hollard at those guys and they said come on in, there wasn't much room behind them and to be honnest I had my doubts that my dad could manuver his 22ft center console between them and the dam breast without slamming into the wall. The water was pushing hard toward the wing wall and their boat. But after a couple mins of finessing the throttle we idled back in the the hole and tied up to the ladder. I started throwing the net and on the first throw I had probably a hundred gizzard shad. Not what we were lookin for so they all went back. Over the next 20 mins all I caught were nice crappie and red ear. We probably had twice our limit in keeper crappie but all those too went back in the drink. Finnaly I hit a school of threadfin and had all we needed. We rigged up our rods and made it safely out of the hole. Now time to start drifting. My dad's friend is an expierenced fisherman but never drifted for big stripers before. So after a couple quick pointers we ran up for our first drift. We eased up to the boiles and dropped our shad to the bottom and started drifting out. WAM WAM drag pealing. We had a double header first drift great way to start a day. We kept drifting and kept catching till about 9:30. I think we caught 14 stripers, a hand full of drum, and two cats. The bite died off so we tied up to the wing wall to try for some bass. We caught a bunch of large mouth and a couple spots and 4 or 5 small mouth. The best LM went 5lbs 4oz and the biggest SM went 4lbs 11oz it was by far my best small mouth. We sat at the wing wall till noon catching bass and drum and then called it a day. I was another great day fishing at Watts Bar. All fish were caught on live threadfin and released unharmed. I will post pics as soon as my dad emails them to me.
