2022 07 10 Nickajack TN River

[coldfront]

went out for a few hours Saturday night with a friend.  conditions setting up for some potential good night fishing, or so I thought.  Hot humid day led to great conditions for evening thunderstorms to FIRE up...  accuweather was not-so-accuweather last night.
needed to head home, but that was a 45 minute run through the TN river gorge and would have taken us into and through the middle of a pretty decent 'light show'.  Stayed put and continued to work the weed beds with horny toads.  we were able to get more than a few to fire.  felt good to introduce someone else to the addiction that is TOAD fishing. 


Put in at 6:00 PM and ran down to sullivans ramp area.  HOT, HUMID (summer in the south), no wind.  94°F.  Clear skies.  Water clarity abut 1-2 feet (normal).
TVA had just 'fired up' and was running 43,000 cfs out of Chickamauga (headwaters) and about 30,000 cfs at the downstream Nickajack dam.  Water levels were up and rising slowly.Water temps were 86°F (friday night).

continued to see a strong preference for colors that include black specks/flakes.  Green Pumpkin Pearl was preferred.  watermelon crawfish was a near second.  blue glimmer also worked.  in that order.  Interesting note:  I think Green Pumpkin Pearl MIGHT be a 'special order' color.  I seem to have a knack for finding these things.  which also means that they're not around long and I can't get MORE of them.  Previously, Zoom ran some Alabama Craw colored toads that were 'the deal'. 


wish Zoom could find a way to keep some of these things in a more regular rotation.

at any rate, after the toad session, caught some sleep and headed back out this morning (Sunday).  TVA shut down the current and it was running 13,000 cfs (Chickamauga) this morning and 30,000 cfs (Nickajack).  So dealing now with falling water levels.  Not fast, but slowly falling none-the-less.  Kept my focus on OUTSIDE weedlines with deep water nearby.
water temps this morning started out at 84°F (cooled down with last nights rain) and found some 'even cooler' spots at 83°F.  Clarity was same as previous night.  the muddier water from the creeks had not yet filtered down-lake where I was fishing.


Most fish came out of 6-8 feet of water.  Again, today's strong preference was the greenpumpkin/pearl toad.  a few 'tried' the watermelon craw, but no strong 'takes'.

about mid-day started playing around with the Berkley HIT worm.  Interesting bait.  fished weightless on the weed edges in current, around the weed points/current breaks.  Good choice.


there are fish also in the coves (Mullins, etc)... caught more than a few tossing the new Showerblows (77) in bleeding white)... they were just little schoolers.  10-12 inches.  entertaining to do the 'twitch, twitch... BOOM' thing.  for a while anyway.   then it got a little tougher.  the fish would dive into the milfoil and naiad and it became a 'pull/winch' game.

possible that the larger fish were just not as active with the water levels dropping.  filed this one away for future revisiting.