Doubling Up on Personal Bests

Kate, Karoline, Adam Doughty, and I went fishing on Watts Bar (upper end of Long Island) tonight.  I got our bait (gizzard shad) in the Center Farm cove.  All of the bait was large (7 -10”).  We fished from ~6:30 to 9:00 p.m. and caught several blue catfish, ranging in size from 1 lb to 10 lbs.  Kate also caught a nice 14 lb rockfish (the best fish of her life), and Karoline caught a 5 lb largemouth bass on about a 6” gizzard shad!  That's quite a hawg for a 12 year old.  This was by far the best bass she’s ever caught.  Two personal bests in one evening - awesome!  Thank you Lord Jesus for all your many blessings!

Doubling Up on Personal Bests & Big Flatheads

Crystal, Arnold, Nancy, and I went fishing on Watts Bar (upper most end of Long Island) tonight.  I got our bait (gizzard shad) in Center Farm cove.  All of the bait was large (7 -10”).  We fished from ~6:30 to 9:00 p.m. and caught several rockfish, channel catfish, blue catfish, and flathead catfish.  Crystal and Nancy both caught the biggest fish of their lives – Crystal a 9 lb blue cat and Nancy a 15 lb rockfish.

I also caught a really nice 45 lb flathead catfish.  My Boga Grip only goes up to 30 lbs and the flathead pegged it out instantly, so I measured it at 46” and I estimated it weighed between 40 & 45 lbs.  I looked up on the Missouri Department of Conservation website a catfish length vs. weight estimator (http://mdc.mo.gov/fish/sport/catfish/length_weight.htm) and it says a 46” flathead weighs 45.59 lbs. Sweet!

Minnows Matter

Luke and I went fishing today with the intention of fishing the smallmouth point at the canal between Tellico and Ft. Loudoun.  We launched below Tellico Dam to get shad minnows, but could not get any – I threw the net for 45 minutes and never got the first minnow.  So we loaded up the boat and re-launched at the ramp at the canal between Tellico and Ft. Loudoun.  We fished the island directly out from the ramp on Tellico and I caught a small largemouth (~14”) on a pink drop shot worm.  We didn’t catch anything else.  We fish a total of probably 2 hours.  Good time together, but definitely humbling from a bassin' point of view.

Bassin' with Stu

Stuart Row and I fished on Watts Bar this morning. (7:00 – 11:00 a.m.).  We went in Stuart’s Hurricane deck boat which he already had in the water at his dock at his lake house.  We fished around Thief Neck Island and up the lake all the way to Lake Harbor.  We caught ~12 largemouth bass on various baits – Texas rig plastic lizard, crank bait (Lucky Craft; shad colored shallow running), drop shot worms.  The best fish was about a 2 lber. It was a great morning, getting to spend some quality time with Stuart - he has definitely become a great friend in a short amount of time.  It's amazing to me how the Lord can unite folks so quickly and strongly that have shared common beliefs and interests. 

Karoline's Biggest Fish - So Far!

Karoline and I went out on Watts Bar for a quick check on the upper end of Long Island tonight.  We got bait in the Center Farm cove – all good sized (5” – 7”) gizzard shad.  Karoline caught several blue cats and rockfish.  One fish in particular (the one shown in the picture) was the biggest fish Karoline has ever caught - just look at that smile.  She cast and fought this 9 lb rockfish all by herself!  She was absolutely thrilled. This will go into the memory banks forever!  Thank you Lord that I got to share it with her - what a precious gift she is!

Rockfishin' with Luke

Luke and I fished Watts Bar after work up above Long Island this evening for a couple of hours.  We got gizzard shad in the Center Farm Cove and caught several rockfish and smaller catfish.

The section of river where the fish are so congregated is shown on the map.  Notice the small hump at the red arrow.  The red arrow points to an osprey’s nest.  The osprey’s nest sits in about 5’ of water and just out from it the water drops to 30’+ deep.  The fish were stacked up on this drop off.  We got a bunch of bites – almost every cast, but lost a lot of fish making me think our bait was too big, and or there were a bunch of small catfish in the area.

Guntersville Bass

Luke and I traveled down to Scottsboro, Alabama today to fish Lake Guntersville.  We had this weekend blocked out for the trip in advance so when the weather turned bad, we opted to stay with the plan and see if we could still find some of spring time Alabama hawgs.  We launched at Goose Pond and fished hard all day in cold windy rainy conditions.  The air temp was in the high 40s so we pretty much froze all day.  We blew across huge sparse grass flats in Norht Sauty Creek.  The bites were few and far between, but we each caught nice 4 lb largemouths on spinnerbaits.  Overall it was a great day of hard fishing.