• Report: Chickamauga Lake crappie

    I took my good friend, Gary Fomby aka Biofisher today for a short crappie trip. Gary is a teacher at Central High School here in Harrison and also the Athletic Director as well. They are on their Christmas break and Gary emailed me last week and we set a date for today when the wind would not be bad. It was a good move.

    The structures that we fished were: roadbed, creek channel edge, blow downs, off shore brush, and vertical structure. We caught at least one fish on each structure. I told Gary that I would pick him up at Harrison Bay State Park at 10:00 AM. The solunar tables that I go by gave us an 11:30 to 1:30 pm window in which the fish should be active. They were. For the first hour plus, we fished the roadbed because I knew that the crappie would not be very active at that time. We caught 2 yellow bass, one short crappie, and near 10:40, I caught the first keeper of the day.

    When it reached 11:00 AM, I moved us to an off shore brushpile. The fish were there, but not very active yet. As it neared the 11:30 window, I began to catch keepers on a very subtle bite. I tried to describe the bite to Gary with each fish and after I put about 5 keepers in the boat, he finally caught one. When we made 3 casts each without a bite, then I moved us to a blowdown. On the first cast into the fallen tree, I missed a fish. Second cast, I caught a 14.5" 1 lb 15oz Black Crappie. Beautiful fish. We caught a couple more, the fish slowed so I moved again.

    Next was brush on a dropoff. It was well into the movement time and we quickly got one limit and 4 over one limit. We nearly left this spot when Gary made one more cast and hook into a beautiful 14.0" Black Crappie. The end of the movement time arrived and we decided to fish one bluff structure before quitting. I caught one nice keeper there and that was it. No more bites and so we headed back to HBSP and put the boat on the trailer around 2:00 PM. I love it when a plan comes together.

    Water temp was 48.6 degrees in the river. Some current in the river, but a strange current at Wolftever creek. The water was flowing back into the creek at a pretty rapid pace. We marked lots of bait and fish, but at the time that we fished that area, the morning movement had not started. We only stayed in that area a short time. Thanks for going with me today, Gary. You did really well after you got onto those subtle bites. Grin. Most of the bites we had today, we could not feel. Line watching a must.

    Bass Assassin 1/24 oz orange head Limetreuse Glow caught every fish but one. I did catch a nice keeper on a Bass Assassin Bluegrass Dapper 2". We donated maybe 1/2 dozen jigs to the brush. Grin.

    This article was originally published in forum thread: Report: Chickamauga Lake crappie 12/20/2016 started by drumking View original post
    Comments 12 Comments
    1. hdhntr's Avatar
      hdhntr -
      Nice day and plan. hitting it hard when ST said it should be and it was. great day with buddy.
    1. "G"'s Avatar
      "G" -
      Good times....nice fish
    1. StratosFS5's Avatar
      StratosFS5 -
      Great looking fish! Congrats!
    1. Speckanator's Avatar
      Speckanator -
      That smile days it all.... Great post!
    1. RetiredRR's Avatar
      RetiredRR -
      Nice slabs and great photos. Congrats.
    1. skeetbum's Avatar
      skeetbum -
      Good trip DK!! Gary will remember this trip and the nice fish the day brought. A very good Christmas present.
    1. crappie flash's Avatar
      crappie flash -
      Those are some great looking fish. Good when a plan comes together.
    1. scrat's Avatar
      scrat -
      Wow! Nice crappie. Great report and pictures.
    1. darcie1's Avatar
      darcie1 -
      Great report and nice fish!
    1. micorps's Avatar
      micorps -
      Great jon moving around nd and finding them.
    1. Speck Detector's Avatar
      Speck Detector -
      Teaching the teacher, very nice, some good fish in there for sure !!
    1. tellico's Avatar
      tellico -
      Nice fish and great report! Happy New Year
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