those aggravatin' smallmouth: guntersville 2019 04 20

[coldfront]

last week it was MLF on Chickamauga.  this week a big High School TXT.  Decided to leave for quieter waters and hit the river section of Guntersville where hopefully even the tournaments 'there' would stay south looking for bigger fish.  just wanted some peace and quiet and to catch a few.

Water was running (Nickajack dam release probablyk in the 50K - 60K cfs range) and came up over a foot from when I put in at sunrise (off at 3PM).  Know this because the ramp I used at bridgeport has a dock.  the 'lower dock' was high/dry when I launched.  under water when I returned.  Temps consistent 63.7°F.  Tossed a few baits, but couldn't get anything going with consistency until I found rocks and went to the toob.

Over (estimating) 40 fish hooked up on this outing.  Maybe half landed.     lost one 4 pounder at the boat, but the fish of the trip was much larger.  Long and built like a great lakes fish.  light, bright golden color.  won't try to tell you that I heard the 'heavenly 'aaahhhh' as she came up and tail-walked in slow motion, but boy is that image seared in my mind still.  don't often get out the scale.  would have put this one on that scale.  she had other ideas.   

guessing there was some bed activity.  most fish in current breaks/eddies 3 to 10 feet deep.  Seemed to need 10-12 feet of depth right off shore for them to be there.

tried a swimbait.  spinnerbait.  beaver-style.  jig.  nothing.   so quit trying to force feed them and stuck with the toob.  went through 3 bags today. always nice when the deck is littered with torn/worn plastics at end of day.  rotated between the regular and coffee scent.  after I ran out of 'regular' all I had left was coffee.  think the bite was better on the non-coffee baits.

at one point, I left the sweet spot and tried to expand to another area.  yep, I 'left fish to find fish' and no it did not work out.   

as always, it's 'the river' so a mixed bag is pretty common.  Some photos of those that did make it over the gunwales today

wrong bronze but awful striking and pretty fish


put on a heavier jig, looking to probe deeper.  good call.  again, wrong species


back to the toob

[Capt. BassinLou]

Very nice!!  You caught a good number of fish today. Well done!! Thank you for the report.

[Smallie_Stalker]

Congrats! I'll  take that kind of aggravation any day.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[coldfront]

Congrats! I'll  take that kind of aggravation any day.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

aggravatin' 'cause I have to figure out how to keep them pinned until they cross the gunwales!

freakin' escape artists!