3 Days at the "Bar" .....

[CrappiePappy]

Watts Bar (lake), that is

Went down Fri morning, and after getting all the necessary things (licenses, lodging, etc) out of the way .... got on the water around 10AM. Fished until 3PM ... shooting docks. Came in out of the heat, cleaned 25 keepers, cooled off, showered and headed to the restaurant. We stayed at Arrowhead Resort. Around 6PM we decided to go back out and fish til dark. Shot one dock and took about 15 nice fish off it ... then we decided to move to another dock close by, and trolled our jigs along the way. That turned out to be a "good move" :D We hit a stretch of bank that was pea gravel with scattered wood, and we had "doubles" on twice within a 50yd stretch. I stopped the boat, turned around and we started fan casting that stretch of bank. We took another 20 or so fish from there. Most were White Crappie males, all decked out in their spawning tux's !! We caught them on a variety of jigs and colors, with junebug/char and red/char being the predominant favorites. We had to practically drag the jig across the bottom, in the 6-8ft depths of this stretch of bank, to get the hit ... but, when we did "bump bottom" with our jigs -- they nailed it !! We left them biting, at dark, and headed back to our room (with ideas of "tearing 'em up" in the morning, in our heads). BUT .... it wasn't to be. TVA dropped the lake about a foot overnight and our "honey hole" fish had moved off. We went back to dock shooting for the remainder of Sat. ... and finished the day with 17. Sunday morning we checked out of our room, paid our bill, and decided to fish a few hours before the trip home. We probably caught around 12-15 more, shooting some docks that had been productive over the previous two days.

Most of the fish we caught were White Crappie males, with only a scattering of White Crappie females. We also caught several Black Crappie females. All the females were still heavy with eggs ... even the Black Crappie females ! Caught several nice Blacknose, too. Nothing would have gone over 1.5lbs ... but, we didn't catch more than 2-3 short fish (<10") over the whole weekend. With stable water levels, the next two weeks should see a wholesale rush to the beds, by both Black & White Crappie spawners.

OK ... now everyone's going to want to see pics. Uggh ... small problem. When we were catching them so fast, I didn't take the time to dig out the camera :rolleyes: ... then, when I did, the few pictures that were taken didn't come out as planned. I didn't notice that my digital camera was set on "MOVIE", rather than picture ........ LOL!! Anyway, I've got two brief "movies" of me hoisting a 1.5lb Blacknose -- problem is, I don't know how to get stills from it, nor do I know how to post them on here (if it's even possible). The one picture I took of my partner, Paul ... holding up a nice fish ... came out kinda dark (well duh, we were in the shade ... my bad). The only really good picture, that came out, is one that I took of the lake ... just to show the kind of "wind" we had to deal with. Think about how much fun we had, trying to shoot docks with 1/16oz jigs on 4lb test line :D

Here it is :

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42...y/6d42b2b1.jpg

Here's the one of Partner Paul, with a nice male, caught early in the AM ... BEFORE the wind got started :

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42...ng20060001.jpg

Anyway ..... we had a great time, caught around 100 keeper Crappie, cleaned about 1/2 of them and released the rest.

Some things I observed during the trip:

It was a post Full Moon weekend (Sun & Moon were almost opposite of each other).
Partner Paul put it on me, on one occasion .... catching 6 fish to my none, even though we were using the same color jig body. Only difference - his jig had a "red hook", mine was gold.
Crappie nesting in 1ft of water ... right next to the bank and the walkway to the fish cleaning dock (about 6 of them in seperate spots ... and one was a Blacknose)

Hope everyone else had a good holiday weekend, too !! ........ cp

[Speck]

Great job pappy, it sounds like a great trip.

[ribit]

Sounds like a good trip. Beats the heck out work. lol

[wrwest]

It sure sound like a good weekend of fishing to me.

[gcromer]

Way to go CP & Paul. Wish I was there. I always enjoyed Watts Bar.
Gerald K4NHN
Cayce, SC

[Moose1am]

Good report CP. Sounds like you had some fun and caught some nice fish. Congratulations. I will send you a PM concerning photography and how to help avoid the dark subject against the lighter background.

[Kenny]

Sounds like a good weekend CP. Did you get to leave the boat in the water overnight or did you have to pull it out each night?

[CrappiePappy]

Sounds like a good weekend CP. Did you get to leave the boat in the water overnight or did you have to pull it out each night?

The boat was left in a covered slip at the main dock. ......... cp

[fishingpox]

Good job , pappy. Now send me my filets. :rolleyes:

[anchorpuller]

Super duper report. Sounds like you had a nice, productive time. Hmmmm red hook ya say?
Wonder how that would affect the night bite.