I'll start with the highlight (or the lowlight). This is what I had to contend with Saturday. :eek:
Now that that's out of the way... Saturday I had the fine honor of fishing with the Honorable Judge David Durham, Criminal Court Judge over Tennessee's 5-county 15th Juducial District... and my not-so-honorable outdoor writer friend, John Sloan from Lebanon, TN. John and David are good friends and fishing partners. They fished with me in 2006 and we had a great trip. I knew I had a tough act to follow... and when I saw TVA wasn't going to run any generators at Chickamauga Dam until 11 am, my heart sank knowing we'd be fishing dead water ... I was a "worried and troubled young man."
I threw out the possibility of shooting docks for crappie instead... but we're all pretty darn old so we opted to go for the lazy man's game and as John will write for his newspaper, "go fish in the dam shade" in the tailwaters of Chickamauga Dam.
To say we made lemonade from lemons is an understatement. We started chasing bluegill for catfish bait. It was not fast and furious, but we were catching quality 'gills. In about 30 minutes we filled the livewell with about 2 dozen eatin'-sized bream (and one big yellow perch). We also snagged several hard-fighting channel cats on the ultralight rods while doing that. Turns out catching the bluegill was wasted effort (we caught all our cats on chicken breast)... but it was still great fun "catchin' bait."
We turned our attention to the cats... set out several big rods in the dead water baited with bluegill... and started casting the light tackle baited with chicken into some of my favorite hotspots. Turns out the light tackle and chicken is where it was at. In three hours we boated a bunch of quality blues. No monsters... the biggest hit 13 lbs.... but great fun.
I also had some shiners and let them swim around until they got eaten by a stripe. It was pretty much constant action, even though the big rods w/bluegill never got touched. Hmmm?
Finally at 11 am the TVA sirens went off and two generators fired up. I was basically just sitting around waiting on the current to pick up and the water to settle out before going back after the cats. I suggested David throw out a shiner, which he did, and promptly hooked a screaming big fish that came unbuttoned. That hurt, but it inspired me to set up a drift pattern with the shiners even though it was 11 o'clock and hot!
But so were the fish.... every single drift we did battle with a blue cat, a channel cat, a spotted bass or a smallmouth!
I hooked one fish on an ultralight bluegill rod w/4 lb. test line. It held in one place just a like an old blue cat would fight and I was sure that's what I had. A few minutes later when it got close to the boat and went screaming by, our jaws dropped at the sight of a big brown fish. Yikes! Did I mention I have no net right now (busted by a previous client and I haven't bought a new one ). It was exciting fighting that fish to the finish until John could lip him. Just over 20 inches... with girth. Woohoo!
We ran out of shiners and headed downstream to drift up some more cats. We had steady action until we all decided we were burnt out (literally) at 1:30. So in spite of dead water, we finagled around and found the right patterns for seven hours of action from Bluegill, Yellow Perch, Channels, Blues, Stripe, Spots and Smallmouth.
It was a great day... just the kind of day you want when you have "His Honor," and a reputable (or reputed) Outdoor Writer in the boat! That means life is good and gettin' better every day!
Now that that's out of the way... Saturday I had the fine honor of fishing with the Honorable Judge David Durham, Criminal Court Judge over Tennessee's 5-county 15th Juducial District... and my not-so-honorable outdoor writer friend, John Sloan from Lebanon, TN. John and David are good friends and fishing partners. They fished with me in 2006 and we had a great trip. I knew I had a tough act to follow... and when I saw TVA wasn't going to run any generators at Chickamauga Dam until 11 am, my heart sank knowing we'd be fishing dead water ... I was a "worried and troubled young man."
I threw out the possibility of shooting docks for crappie instead... but we're all pretty darn old so we opted to go for the lazy man's game and as John will write for his newspaper, "go fish in the dam shade" in the tailwaters of Chickamauga Dam.
To say we made lemonade from lemons is an understatement. We started chasing bluegill for catfish bait. It was not fast and furious, but we were catching quality 'gills. In about 30 minutes we filled the livewell with about 2 dozen eatin'-sized bream (and one big yellow perch). We also snagged several hard-fighting channel cats on the ultralight rods while doing that. Turns out catching the bluegill was wasted effort (we caught all our cats on chicken breast)... but it was still great fun "catchin' bait."
We turned our attention to the cats... set out several big rods in the dead water baited with bluegill... and started casting the light tackle baited with chicken into some of my favorite hotspots. Turns out the light tackle and chicken is where it was at. In three hours we boated a bunch of quality blues. No monsters... the biggest hit 13 lbs.... but great fun.
I also had some shiners and let them swim around until they got eaten by a stripe. It was pretty much constant action, even though the big rods w/bluegill never got touched. Hmmm?
Finally at 11 am the TVA sirens went off and two generators fired up. I was basically just sitting around waiting on the current to pick up and the water to settle out before going back after the cats. I suggested David throw out a shiner, which he did, and promptly hooked a screaming big fish that came unbuttoned. That hurt, but it inspired me to set up a drift pattern with the shiners even though it was 11 o'clock and hot!
But so were the fish.... every single drift we did battle with a blue cat, a channel cat, a spotted bass or a smallmouth!
I hooked one fish on an ultralight bluegill rod w/4 lb. test line. It held in one place just a like an old blue cat would fight and I was sure that's what I had. A few minutes later when it got close to the boat and went screaming by, our jaws dropped at the sight of a big brown fish. Yikes! Did I mention I have no net right now (busted by a previous client and I haven't bought a new one ). It was exciting fighting that fish to the finish until John could lip him. Just over 20 inches... with girth. Woohoo!
We ran out of shiners and headed downstream to drift up some more cats. We had steady action until we all decided we were burnt out (literally) at 1:30. So in spite of dead water, we finagled around and found the right patterns for seven hours of action from Bluegill, Yellow Perch, Channels, Blues, Stripe, Spots and Smallmouth.
It was a great day... just the kind of day you want when you have "His Honor," and a reputable (or reputed) Outdoor Writer in the boat! That means life is good and gettin' better every day!
