Nickajack crappie trip

My friend, Tommy Y, and I finally got together for a crappie trip on Nickajack lake this morning. It has been a long time coming. It was cold, but we had a lot of fun for the 3 hours that we fished.

The bite began as soon as we reach our destination as I hooked a nice crappie on my second cast only to have it pull off just a few feet from the live well. Grin

But Tommy, having local knowledge and me being stubborn and wanted to experiment with different lures, caught most of our limit of really good fish with most being a pound or more. I did catch a few.

TVA was running 78,000+ cfs on the Nick this morning and we fished a spot on the main river channel with 1/8 oz jig heads with the boat sitting in 42-46 feet of water and the fish suspended 15-20 feet down mostly.

I think this is the first time in 4 years that I have been to Nickajack or maybe even longer than that. It isn’t very far for me to drive, about 45 minutes, but the ramp at Marion County is tricky and boats must be launched at an angle to prevent the wheels on trailer from dropping off the ramp.

Tommy showed me how to safely launch my boat when/if I go back down there to fish. I’ll fish with him if I get another invite. Lolol.

This was my first crappie trip in about 6-7 weeks. I have been and will continue to fish for Stripers until water temp falls below 46 degrees. Then I will crappie and Bluegill fish with maybe a little shellcracker fishing thrown in for good measure.

Water temp was 50 degrees and it was below freezing air temp when we launched just before daylight.