Luke and I went down below Watts Bar Dam to fish for shellcrackers and bluegill today. We fished the discharge from the Nuke Plant's cooling towers with a pop-eye fly tipped with wax worms. We caught a bunch of fish today - keeping only males that were above 8" to 9". TWRA has a trophy fish recognition program called the Tennessee Angler Recognition Program (TARP). This program establishes a size for each game species at which a fish caught of that size or larger is recognized as a trophy for that species. An 11" shellcracker (Redear Sunfish - Lepomis microlophus) and a 10" Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) qualify as TARP fish. Luke caught two shellcrackers that were 11" long - see picture above. These are really nice panfish!
