I decided to give the Hiwassee a break and head to Watts Bar. It was really nice Saturday and the lake was loaded with fisherman and pleasure riders.
The first thing I noticed right off the bat was the lake is WAAAAY down from what it was when I was there a couple weeks ago. Then I noticed that all the fisherman I observed already fishing, were fishing very shallow. The water was in the upper 60s temp wise but from past experience I decided to do the opposite of what everybody else was doing.
I started out fishing for bass, and let my wife go looking for the crappie. I had read where you guys were catching fish on lipless crankbaits so I had one tied on a baitcasting outfit. I kid you not, my first cast out there I burned it by a stump I could just barely see in the water and got freight trained on it. The fish wasted no time coming to the top and I saw it was a pretty good size bass. After a few seconds of scrambling around the boat I got 'er in. I think I got a big long male Largemouth. I will post pictures later but this fish was long and super skinny. On my digital scales it was 3.0 pounds EVEN. I had a few more strikes on the lipless crank and had one nice hookup on a heavy feeling fish but it pulled loose before I ever got a look at it. All my strikes occured in 5-10 feet of water in secondary pockets beside points.
My wife got into the crappie and stripe and I put down the bass rod and started helping her put some in the livewell. She got a real nice 2 lb crappie and we put 12 keepers in the boat for the evening. We were just casting jigs and grubs. Our fish were decently sized fish...I have one of those crappie measure thingys that you slide the fish in and all our fish were even with the end of it or hanging off the side of it. That's a big jump from the Hiwassee where you throw back 5 for every 1 you keep. But you could sit on that spot and fish it for a while and never get big by anything but the little stripe then its like the crappie would come in and start feeding and you'd catch them in real quick session. We learned what was happening and would kinda go give the place a rest for a while then come back.
Fished the mid section of the lake. Put in at Rowden Branch and never left that general area. LOTS of other fisherman were up in there fishing but like I said, they were all fishing very shallow water. MOST of them that I observed were using floats and casting to the very plentyful visible stumps sticking out of the water. I never saw any of them catch a single fish. We lost count on the number of stripe and drum we caught. Had 12 keeper crappie at the end of the day and several strikes on the lipless crank while bass fishing.
The first thing I noticed right off the bat was the lake is WAAAAY down from what it was when I was there a couple weeks ago. Then I noticed that all the fisherman I observed already fishing, were fishing very shallow. The water was in the upper 60s temp wise but from past experience I decided to do the opposite of what everybody else was doing.
I started out fishing for bass, and let my wife go looking for the crappie. I had read where you guys were catching fish on lipless crankbaits so I had one tied on a baitcasting outfit. I kid you not, my first cast out there I burned it by a stump I could just barely see in the water and got freight trained on it. The fish wasted no time coming to the top and I saw it was a pretty good size bass. After a few seconds of scrambling around the boat I got 'er in. I think I got a big long male Largemouth. I will post pictures later but this fish was long and super skinny. On my digital scales it was 3.0 pounds EVEN. I had a few more strikes on the lipless crank and had one nice hookup on a heavy feeling fish but it pulled loose before I ever got a look at it. All my strikes occured in 5-10 feet of water in secondary pockets beside points.
My wife got into the crappie and stripe and I put down the bass rod and started helping her put some in the livewell. She got a real nice 2 lb crappie and we put 12 keepers in the boat for the evening. We were just casting jigs and grubs. Our fish were decently sized fish...I have one of those crappie measure thingys that you slide the fish in and all our fish were even with the end of it or hanging off the side of it. That's a big jump from the Hiwassee where you throw back 5 for every 1 you keep. But you could sit on that spot and fish it for a while and never get big by anything but the little stripe then its like the crappie would come in and start feeding and you'd catch them in real quick session. We learned what was happening and would kinda go give the place a rest for a while then come back.
Fished the mid section of the lake. Put in at Rowden Branch and never left that general area. LOTS of other fisherman were up in there fishing but like I said, they were all fishing very shallow water. MOST of them that I observed were using floats and casting to the very plentyful visible stumps sticking out of the water. I never saw any of them catch a single fish. We lost count on the number of stripe and drum we caught. Had 12 keeper crappie at the end of the day and several strikes on the lipless crank while bass fishing.
