2021 12 04 TN River Nickajack

[coldfront]

morning came and it was one of these things that make me love living further south.  54°F at daybreak.  almost shirt-sleeve weather in December.  Cloudy, overcast was forecast and except for a brief 30 minute window late morning no sunshine was apparent.

headed down to the river because it's saturday, Chickamauga is a winter pool and it's good to get away from the tournament crowd (for anyone who's ever had their kids in little league soccer, sometimes it can feel a little like 'bunch ball' out there). Or so I thought.  show up at the river park ramp and it's full.  not a parking spot to be had.  adding insult to injury, a couple truck/trailers had been parked taking up 'multiple' stalls.  'thanks' fellas. so audibled and headed further down river/lake to a great little ramp that doesn't usually have too much use (I was one of two trailers in there) and dropped the boat in.

plans were to keep playing with the small, finesse swimbait, maybe try a jerkbait, pitch a few plastics if situation came up.
water temps were 55.6°F at 8AM and had gotten all the way up to 56°F by 4:30 PM when I loaded up and headed home.  TVA was running minimal current (13,000 cfs from Chickamauga and 24,000 cfs from the downstream Nickajack dam) and water was clear with 4-5 foot visibility and dropping.  I've learned to really pay attention to current generation at the head/tail ends of these river lakes.  changes things a bit.   for reference, 13,000 cfs allowed me to set my Ultrex on '4' and move upstream at a steady, reasonable pace that let me really concentrate and work my baits.  that's the great news.  the downside is that current seams and pools are really dialed way way back (to non-existent).

started out with a ghost deep shadow rap.  no interest... so switched to berkley flatworm rigged on their half-moon jig head (1/8 ounce) on the spinning rod.  right away started getting bites.  rocks, 'nothing looking banks'... they all seemed to hold fish...  with clear water, eventually I was able to figure out that there were, in most places, quick drops, ledges (think about what an undercut bank on a creek channel looks like, just in 4-5 feet of water and dropping into 15-20 ft).  That worked well and I started putting spotted bass into the boat with a few largemouth sprinkled in here and there (typically where there was remnants of grass, flatter spots).  Working downstream pockets behind laydowns (where current was funneled) gave up a few smallmouth.

about mid-morning, I switched over to the other spinning rod and started working with the 3 inch keitech easy shiner on a 1/8 ounce ballhead.  and bites picked up just a bit.

for reference, I dropped the boat in about 8AM, ran upriver to start at a key spot, dropped the trolling motor and never fired up the big motor until it was time to head to the ramp at the end of the day.  I sat on that Ultrex (set at 4, sometimes 3) and just worked up river.  worked about 2 miles of river in 7-8 hours.  I knew the 'key spots' I expected to find fish, but decided to just 'explore' a bit and look harder at these 'nothing looking sections).  Glad that I did.  Went through two packages of Berkley flatworms and 3 packages of the keitechs today.  with 4-5 or more fish per bait, that's a lot of fish.  Might have pushed 100 fish today.  mostly small spotted bass.  maybe had 20 fish today that would have been over a pound.  nothing (bass) that went over 1.5 pounds.

on the keitech, it was a mixed bag.  spots, smallies, largemouth.  couple big drum and an outstanding 14-15 inch black crappie (next to spots, might be one of the prettiest fish out there).  handful of bluegill that were in their 'winter pelage' (pastel colors... but that lavender color on top and the peach-colored breasts) that they get in winter with colder water.
you can see the swimbait color I spent most of the day with (it's hanging out of the mouth of the drum).  but later in the day I switched to a shad colored bait (alewife actually) and it was like someone switched on a light...  EVERYTHING, EVERY FISH in the river was trying to get that thing in it's mouth.  Just amazing how something as simple as a color change can really impact success.

just a GREAT day to be outside, on the water.  fishing simple and catching.


as I was fishing I was getting pretty excited.  made the decision to upgrade electronics this spring, so will be moving to humminbird units with larger screens and adding the 360° imaging.  that's going to be a HUGE help in finding, understanding key structure, cover moments on those 'off-shore' river ledges.  between trees 'washed' in and those magic huge boulders that make current breaks out there... it's really difficult to know what's offshore just by reading the shoreline.  (sometimes that works, sometimes that sends you off on a wild goose-chase).   should be fun learning to use this stuff this spring.  working the water today, I could see the applications and potential improvements for more, better precision fishing.


that's enough.  long and rambling as always.  couple photos.

[zippyduck]

Thanks for a great report. Anywhere close to 100 fish is outstanding. 

[Mike Cork]

Wow what a day. Don't get many like this. Thank you for putting together the great report.

I don't think I've ever seen a drum quite that color. Is it special? Or just a standard freshwater drum?

[coldfront]

Wow what a day. Don't get many like this. Thank you for putting together the great report.

I don't think I've ever seen a drum quite that color. Is it special? Or just a standard freshwater drum?

wikipedia says they get more brown/bronze in clear water.  I've sure caught them huge and perfectly silver before too.  think some of it has to be a diet thing.  like flamingos are vivid pink from eating certain crustaceans.  here in the TN river, we have a ton of molluscs/species of molluscs...  suspect the color is from the shells/pigments of those molluscs.

sure wouldn't be just crayfish, mayflies and shad?  every other waterway has those too.

when I first moved here, had one on that had it gotten away I would has sworn to the day I died was a world record smallie.  that color is distinct.


the other part of these reports mike is that I use them a bit like a notebook.      that explains how/why I name the titles.

know folks say to log down your trips.  noting season, weather, temps, etc.  if I want to go back and review a lake at a certain tme of the year?  that's there.  folks might n ote that I'm not real location specific... but I know where those fish were... and exactly what I was doing.  and the few 'very special days' I have had are burned in my mind.
am also mindful, though, of just how much internet scouting goes on.  heck, how much of it I do myself...      while I don't kid myself to thinking that i'm the only guy who's figured something out, nothing is more frustrating that seeing a spot that a guy used to be able to pull up on and expect to fish being pretty  quiet.  that's gotten even tougher now with folks all wanting to put things on youtube (can't hide backgrounds there)...


then too, by now those who've read my reports know I'm not 'killing it' and often not doing what everyone else is doing.  part of me having to find my own fish and figure them out with my confidence baits/approaches.


but reports for the basis of a lot of the learning/research I do... 

[Mike Cork]

At first look I thought it was a derp smallmouth... Definitely different. Our Louisiana drum have a healthy does of crawfish for a diet, in fact I catch more on jigs than any other bait. I know pretty quick they are a drum, our largemouth surface pretty quick and the drum dig.

[Donald Garner]

CF, congrats on the catching and tks for sharing the trip and pictures with us also.  Our freshwater drum over this way are all Silver looking.

[coldfront]

thanks Don.  figure if I'm going to share, may as well try to include pics and more than just the basics.  seems only right for those who spend the time and read my 'war and peace' reports.





fishing can often resemble that great charles dickens quote (Tale of Two Cities)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...

[Princeton_Man]

Thanks for a great report. Anywhere close to 100 fish is outstanding. 

X2
I had a dream like that the other night.