where are the fish

[Dogdays]

I just got my first fishin boat a couple of weeks ago and I havent caught anything I guess its safe to say I do not know what I am doing. I have been fishing the slews around chesterfrost and the golf course on the other side of the lake but produced nothing. are the fish in deep water now. i am assuming that they are. but me being a bank fisherman i dont really know how to fish deep water or where to fish.

I am planing to go out tomarrow mourning but dont know where to go.

 

[polo-dog]

Dogdays,

What part of the lake are you planning to fish? If you let me know sometime soon I will look at my maps and bring back some memories of where I've had good fishing in the area and let you know. I took my nephew out fishing for a few minutes this afternoon, about 1pm and was looking to catch a few bluegills or a catfish on some worms but in stead he hooked a largemouth of about 4 lb. He had a great time bringing it in. The fish was in about 12-15 ft of water and was off the outside edge of a hump in Harrison bay next to about 20-25ft of water. I was in the water swimming last night and it seemed that the thermocline(the place in the water column where the water turns much cooler) was somewhere between 8 and 10 feet down. I would expect it would be similar everywhere in the lake so if you look at your maps and see a point or a hump that is about 8-12 feet on top that has some stumps on it. I would expect to find bass, bluegills and catfish there. Even if there is little cover at that contour there still could be bunches of fish there. I would also expect river/creek banks in the same depth range to have fish on them. If you have a fish finder/depth finder and you go out over the creek/river channel and mark clouds of bait fish, anywhere the channel hits the bank at the depth that the bait is holding could be good. Points, outside bends, and humps would be my starting points.

 

[Dogdays]

thanks for the input polo-dog. I will probally fish somewhere around chester frost or at least put my boat in there.

where can I get a map of the water?

 

[JC1]

Hello and Welcome Dogdays! What kind of fishing are you doing? If you just want a tug on your line, try throwing a rooster tail anywhere along the shore where you find willow flys. The bluegill will gladly oblige and you never know but what a nice bass may join the fray.Also try for Bass on deeper trees in the same areas with plastic worms would also be a good bet.Good luck! Let us know how you do and keep reading the forum for tips and you'll catch 'em!JC1

 

[jason]

Strike King's 1/8oz triple wing buzzbait works great along shady undercut banks during the willowfly hatch. I think the bass just see an oversized willowfly. Nice slabs will nail it, too.

 

[polo-dog]

Dogdays, I don't know Chester Frost well. I have caught some fish there but I normally fish the other side of the river. I have caught fish out from the swimming beach with a heavy spinnerbait along the bottom out from the bouys. There is cover down there. The back of Dallas bay is full of stumps on the flats but I would expect that the most of them are in 6-8 or at the most 10 feet of water with no good points that I can see to concentrate the fish. There are a few points that lead out into deep water out on the far side of the island/camping area. There is some cover on the end of the points and the first slough on the right coming in from the river has a spring on the end of it. I have caught some good fish there. I think there is a lot of brush on the end of it also and there's lots of old fishing line caught on the brush and so I would expect many crappie fisherman have dumped a bunch of Christmas trees on the end of it. I have tried the point on the right coming in from the main lake and I would expect that it holds fish but I never have felt anything on the top of it but there is a very steep drop on the inside/west side of that point and I've caught fish there in the winter. There is also a bouy outside of the creek mouth there at the very tip of Dallas Island(the long submurged island on the main lake) and sometimes there are huge numbers of baitfish, bass and stripers that you can catch vertical jigging with a spoon. In my experience, I get the feeling that the Chester Frost area is very overfished and if you know where the fish stack up it can be okay but there doesn't seem to be places that are easy to pick where the fish are found, you just have to put time in fishing the area at different times of the year. You can get maps of the lake at Wal-Mart and most fishing/bait shops. I prefer the TVA maps that you can get by calling the TVA number or you used to be able and probably still can go to the TVA building and get the maps from there.