Watts Bar 3-30-07

[Daniel Tn]

Went after work today. A friend from work was suppose to go with me and I brought my boat to work so we could leave right out and not waste time. He backed out of going and since I went through the trouble of hauling the boat in, I went by myself anyway.

Wind was up to the point of just being enough to be aggrevating with boat control and the water level was up about 2' or better from what it has been all week.

And long story short...my big fish have moved and been replaced by barely legals.

Tuesday the shortest fish I had out of eleven was 12". Today the LONGEST I had out of seven was 12".

All my fish today were males. Caught half of them by trolling and the other half be simply casting jigs with grubs.

Got the usual mixed bag of fish as well. Stripe, bluegill, drum, you know the routine.

Water was clearer than it has been...somewhere around 3-4 feet visibility. Pollen is sitting on top of it though and makes it look icky. Water temp was near 70 in most places this evening. Fished the Hawg Pen as usual.

 

[jon the fisherman]

Thanx for the report Daniel! I noticed the water being really clear around my house and low, and don't get me started on the pollen...I have had a thick yellow covering on my truck for a couple days now.

 

[Pointer 78]

Good to see you back Jon.

 

[japlata]

. What part of the lake were you fishing Daniel? We fished almost all day yesterday(Thursday) Put in at Sandy bottom and trolled mostly in 10 t0 12 feet of water, but sometimes shallower. The wind blew hard out of the nth. early, but settled down to a right good day to fish. two of us used a variation of jigs and colors plus minnows. We caught three keeper crappie,(off of one point) and that was it, "oh" we caught a bunch of trash fish. There was no one in the parking lot at the ramp and we may have seen three or four boats all day and all but one were on the move. Remind me not to fish the lower end of Watts Bar any time soon

 

[Daniel Tn]

This time of year 98% of my fishing is in the "Hog Pen" or Rowden Branch as people know it on the map. That whole area is good for a lot of spring fishing and if you know good spots on it, good year round. You can put in at Hornsby and make a short run to it, or since the water is too low to put in at Hornsby right now, I've been putting in at the TWRA ramp in Rowden Branch itself. It's a single lane ramp and it's been pretty good one for as low as the water is now.

A lot of fisherman are fishing that area right now and putting in there. You don't have to go far to find the fish either but as they are in the spring, they'll do you like they done me Friday. You can be on the good and be in good fish and then they are replaced by short and smaller fish. I just got back from my grandpa's birthday cookout where we took all my crappie from the last two trips. That was 18 crappie, so you figure 2 fillets a fish....and all that fish was gone when we left. There was grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, and fresh trout, and they picked the crappie over it all.