Scenic City Weekend Catfish Report, 6-25-2007

Here's the weekend report from Scenic City Fishing Charters in Chattanooga. Saturday I had the honor of fishing on Chickamauga Lake with Darren and Peggy Donnellan today. They just moved to Chattanooga 2 or 3 years ago and haven't fished around here a lot. They put down the high bid on a trip I donated to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (they're serious elk hunters). Early in the day I was worried. We caught a couple of "quick fish" and then everything seemed to go dead. It was just after 9 am and I was thinking about abandoning ship and heading for new water. The fish must have sensed my concern because "boom," they turned on. We stayed real busy for the next 2 hours... I couldn't get a cup of coffee poured. All our fish were cookie-cutter 8 to 12 pounders from 50 feet of water ... they LOVED that chicken breast. Peggy and Darren had a blast... they've done some halibut and king salmon fishing in Alaska, but said today was the most fish they ever caught in their life.

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On Sunday Scott White and his son, Zachary, came down from Franklin, Tenn. to sample some Chickamauga Lake cats today. Scott is "Dog On Point" on www.TNDeer.com. I guess that makes Zachary "Pup On Point." We also got to say "Hi," to TNDoe who was chasing a few bass and following up on the cats for good measure. The blues cooperated pretty well. It wasn't fast & furious today. But we hung in there and slowly but surely loaded up two coolers for Scott. School is out for the summer but we made Zachary practice his math skills all morning (when he wasn't struggling to reel in a big blue). Zachary calculated that we put 100 lbs. of fish in the boat today. Scott is planning a 4th of July Fish Fry. All except a couple of the bigger fish (that wouldn't fit in the coolers), won a free ride to Franklin. I'm waiting to hear where the fish fry is going to be. <grin> As usual, life is good and gettin' better every day!

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Nice kitty's you have there. Catching them in 50' of water must have been a good time.

Nice looking catch! How big are the pieces of chicken breast you are using?

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Originally Posted by FishnLine

Nice looking catch! How big are the pieces of chicken breast you are using?

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I typically cut chunks that are roughly 1 x 2 inches... sometimes bigger, much bigger, if I'm specifically targeting "trophy cats."

Richard , never used chicken breast for bait. Looks like you got a great fishery there. I'd tried almost everything for bait or so I thought. Here we have mostly Channel Cats. We bait holes with sweet feed and catch the heck out of them on Catalpa Worms. Most of ours are 1 to 4 lbs with a few larger. Last weekend everyone we took kept limits and released a bunch. We kept 18 limits to fillet.:D Our limit is 10 per day per fisherman. Not much fun fillet'n 180 catfish.:( We have some great Blues in the Arkansas River but it's awful high now.:D

pretty neat for sure- haul a 40+ pounder out of 90 feet of water !! gotta love them cats !

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Originally Posted by NIMROD

Richard , never used chicken breast for bait. Looks like you got a great fishery there. I'd tried almost everything for bait or so I thought. Here we have mostly Channel Cats. We bait holes with sweet feed and catch the heck out of them on Catalpa Worms. Most of ours are 1 to 4 lbs with a few larger. Last weekend everyone we took kept limits and released a bunch. We kept 18 limits to fillet.:D Our limit is 10 per day per fisherman. Not much fun fillet'n 180 catfish.:( We have some great Blues in the Arkansas River but it's awful high now.:D

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Wow! Depending on tackle your using, that's got to be fun. Pound-for-pound channel cats outfight blue 3-to-1. We catch some channels in isolated spots, but 85% of the cats we catch are blues. The Tennessee River is a catfish factory. With the exception of a "trophy regulation" (can only keep one per day OVER 34 inches), we have no limits at this time. And we never keep the trophies anyway...

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Originally Posted by RACN35

pretty neat for sure- haul a 40+ pounder out of 90 feet of water !! gotta love them cats !

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Can you tell me where I can go online and read more about the "Virginia Gamefish Tagging Program?" I've asked the Tennessee Wildlife folks to participate in an organized tagging program with them. They seem interested, but are dragging their feet.

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Originally Posted by rsimms

Wow! Depending on tackle your using, that's got to be fun. Pound-for-pound channel cats outfight blue 3-to-1. We catch some channels in isolated spots, but 85% of the cats we catch are blues. The Tennessee River is a catfish factory. With the exception of a "trophy regulation" (can only keep one per day OVER 34 inches), we have no limits at this time. And we never keep the trophies anyway...

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The fish are usually up to 5lbs with a few close to 8 or more. Not uncommon to get our lines broke. We use Black Widow Poles in 16.5' with 14 lb test and 1/0 hook baited with Catalpa Worms. The reason for no reels and long poles is because of crossed lines with rods/reels. Also if friends or clients have a pole pulled in they float.
On the Arkansas River we can keep 10 Catfish and 10 more Channels under 16''. There it's mostly Blues and we use rod and reels. Turkey liver or Shad works great there.
We love to fish Flatheads ,but that's real slow fishing most of the time. There was a drawdown on Lake Conway a few years back and we wore them out. They hit minnows and used our Bass Tackle.


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Richard I see your fishing that deep water up bu the power plant. That is a nice fishing hole.
I got to fish it, I think three years ago when we were all camping there at Harrison bay.
Pete