Pretty Good Weekend

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TN Larry

TN Larry

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Sep 17, 2003
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8,551
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Baxter, Tennessee
Started the weekend off early on Thursday afternoon with my 6 year old. We headed to Center Hill for a couple of hours after work and school. It was a little chilly but an okay evening. We only caught three but had several bites and lost a few. It wasn't a bad evening for a couple of hours.



I headed to Dale Hollow on Friday morning to pre-fish for a tournament on Saturday. I didn't take any pictures as there were boats around me but found a pretty good group of fish.

On Saturday, the morning started off hot as we had over 20 lbs in the boat by 9:30 including a 6 lb LM and 5.5 SM that I caught. The only problem was that the remainder of the day was a train wreck. :) Everything went perfect until that point. We either couldn't stick them or would lose them when we did after that. I lost two more big LM at the boat that we saw. It took nearly 24 lbs to win, and those two lost fish would have made it interesting. We ended up in 5th. That is fishing though as I am sure that others lost fish as well.



All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. That is the biggest SM that I have ever caught. Dale Hollow is on fire right now.

I hope that it is pretty this weekend so that I can take my little boy after a little turkey hunting on Saturday morning. He is fired up so I hope that the weather cooperates.
 
lots of big sacks being caught on dale hollow this year. more than I ever remember. center hill was kind of dead Saturday compared to last week. we only caught a few. cordell was on fire sunday though, we got on some good ones. one about 6 and several around the 4 lbs.
 
mathews338 said:
lots of big sacks being caught on dale hollow this year. more than I ever remember. center hill was kind of dead Saturday compared to last week. we only caught a few. cordell was on fire sunday though, we got on some good ones. one about 6 and several around the 4 lbs.
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I don't fish up there a lot but usually here what it takes to win. 20 lbs is normally very strong up there but not this year. There were 5 sacks over 20 out of 43 boats in ours. There was another one to that I heard took over 23 to win so I am sure that there were some more over 20 as well.

I heard that it only took 13 something to win the Macon Co on Saturday. I figured that it would take 18 or 19 at least. I haven't talked to anyone that fished there this weekend. I know that it was crazy there last weekend as well with 4 sacks over 20 out of 26 or 27 boats.
 
SES said:
That is a nice smallmouth, but that largemouth sure looks like a giant spot to me.
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It was shaped like a spot, super wide and fat but was 100% LM. I know the difference between the two. I wished it would have been a spot though.
 
TN Larry said:
mathews338 said:
lots of big sacks being caught on dale hollow this year. more than I ever remember. center hill was kind of dead Saturday compared to last week. we only caught a few. cordell was on fire sunday though, we got on some good ones. one about 6 and several around the 4 lbs.
Click to expand...

I don't fish up there a lot but usually here what it takes to win. 20 lbs is normally very strong up there but not this year. There were 5 sacks over 20 out of 43 boats in ours. There was another one to that I heard took over 23 to win so I am sure that there were some more over 20 as well.

I heard that it only took 13 something to win the Macon Co on Saturday. I figured that it would take 18 or 19 at least. I haven't talked to anyone that fished there this weekend. I know that it was crazy there last weekend as well with 4 sacks over 20 out of 26 or 27 boats.
Click to expand...
yep 13 lb is what won Macon co. My buddy only had 11 and got 3rd. If he only had 11 then I know it was a rough day on the hill. I fished that day but not in the tournament. I felt bad about what we caught until I talked to him. I knew it just wasn't me then, lol.
 
SES said:
10-4. It's mouth just looks tiny compared to its body. Nice fish!!
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Yeah, it was so fat that it made its head look small. We thought it was a 5 lber all day until we got it out and put it on the scales. It was about as fat of a LM that you will see so it made it hard to guess how much that it did weigh.
 
mathews338 said:
TN Larry said:
mathews338 said:
lots of big sacks being caught on dale hollow this year. more than I ever remember. center hill was kind of dead Saturday compared to last week. we only caught a few. cordell was on fire sunday though, we got on some good ones. one about 6 and several around the 4 lbs.
Click to expand...

I don't fish up there a lot but usually here what it takes to win. 20 lbs is normally very strong up there but not this year. There were 5 sacks over 20 out of 43 boats in ours. There was another one to that I heard took over 23 to win so I am sure that there were some more over 20 as well.

I heard that it only took 13 something to win the Macon Co on Saturday. I figured that it would take 18 or 19 at least. I haven't talked to anyone that fished there this weekend. I know that it was crazy there last weekend as well with 4 sacks over 20 out of 26 or 27 boats.
Click to expand...
yep 13 lb is what won Macon co. My buddy only had 11 and got 3rd. If he only had 11 then I know it was a rough day on the hill. I fished that day but not in the tournament. I felt bad about what we caught until I talked to him. I knew it just wasn't me then, lol.
Click to expand...

He had 20 lbs of smallmouth last weekend. That's why they call it fishing though instead of catching. :)
 
I went to the Hill on Saturday morning also. It was a lot tougher than I expected. We had to leave at 12, and didnt catch a fish until about 10:30. I think when the sun came out, the bite turned on a little.
 
I been seeing people on different forums saying that dale hollow is going down hill and that it isn't like it was a few years ago but it looks like it is still one of the top if not the top smallmouth lake. Nice fish Larry.
 
It has went down hill some in the smallmouth department. They had a huge SM die off in 2012 which was estimated at around 50% die off if I remember right. With that said, there are still plenty of healthy SM in the lake just not that many overs. They had a 190 boat BFL up there the week before, and they absolutely smoked the fish. Out of those, there were zero overs caught. However, I had a buddy that caught 5 slots that would have weighed 22 lbs. The over that I caught on Saturday was unexpected and a "bonus" fish for us. It hit right at the boat and went to smoking drag under the boat. My partner dove for the net, and I said don't worry about it because it's brown thinking that it was just a 4 lb slot fish. Then, we saw it....... :)

In my opinion, the die off will help as there were too many fish there in the slot to start with. I think that they should move the length limit to 18" like most of the state and leave it alone. However, that is coming from an arm chair biologist as well. :)

Now the LM population on the other hand is absolutely amazing right now. There are so many 3 lb fish there that it is crazy and bigger sacks than I have ever seen consistently coming out of there this year.

It is a good time to be fishing DH right now as the LM population is excellent and there are still plenty of SM. We had another SM on Saturday that just nearly brushed the 21" mark. It was about a 1/64" short. :)
 
I have an over only smallmouth only tourney on Dale Hollow in 2 weeks. The last 2 years there has been no fish weighed in this tourney. Pretty much dumb luck to catch an over on the Dale these days. It still is fun catching 3 and 4 lb slots. That 5.5 smallie you caught is one of the nicest smallies I have heard of in a while on that lake.
 
Kimberman said:
I have an over only smallmouth only tourney on Dale Hollow in 2 weeks. The last 2 years there has been no fish weighed in this tourney. Pretty much dumb luck to catch an over on the Dale these days. It still is fun catching 3 and 4 lb slots. That 5.5 smallie you caught is one of the nicest smallies I have heard of in a while on that lake.
Click to expand...
That is depressing to hear,I caught 6 overs one weekend a few years ago,man I hope it comes back,AND SOON!
 

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