The National Weather Service had issued a Tornado Warning for the Roane County area as I drove south on Hwy 58 to fish below Watts Bar Dam, and the Emergency Notification System interrupted the music on the radio and announced that severe weather was in the area and everyone should remain in doors - I thought for a minute about whether I should go or not...the thought might have lasted a minute, but I seriously doubt it - more like 10 seconds. I did decide that it was probably a good idea to go below the dam since it would provide the best wind break I could find. Needless to say when I arrived at the launching ramp I got the closest parking spot because there was no one else in sight. At about 4:30 p.m., I headed up river. The wind was blowing straight up the river out of the southeast and about 1/4 mile downstream of the dam the fast flowing water (rushing down river) met the wind blowing the top surface of the water and formed some huge 3-4' waves that were quite a force to be reckoned with when traveling to the dam. Once I was up close to the dam the wind wasn't too bad. There was a nice school of shad minnows running the west shoreline, so I got a good batch of bait fairly easily. The rig of choice was a poppin' cork with a 3' 10 lb test flourocarbon leader and a 1/0 Owner Mutu Light circle hook. I drifted down the west shoreline offering the 3" gizzard shad along the chunk rock bank. In about 3 hours I boated 8 bass, the best being a 4 lb. smallmouth shown above, a nice 2 lb Kentucky spotted bass, and a 2 lb largemouth completed the day's East TN Bass Grandslam.
No comments:
Post a Comment