Thread: Chickamauga Lake Trifecta

Belated report, sorry. Hit the lake Wednesday and came up with what you might call a Trifecta. My main goal was to make my first exploratory foray of the year on my standard crappie guiding technique... long line trolling. Water temp in Harrison Bay was around 43 degrees, obviously too cold to expect much. I hate it when I'm right. Only two good crappie in about two hours, but there were enough yellow bass or stripe to help pass the time.


Plus a BONUS fish! I'd already hooked a good blue cat on the ultralight crappie tackle that pulled off before I got him in the boat. So I assumed the next big fish was another cat. I hooked it on an ultralight rod with 6 lb. test I use shooting docks. He was peeling drag big time. It was a LONG fight to get him near the boat, and I expected to see a hefty blue cat roll up. You could have knocked me over when a feather when a big largemouth came up and wallowed. He pulled the scales to just a shade over seven pounds. That was special.


In the afternoon I switched over and went scouting for some new-to-me catfishing spots. I found one sweet spot. I anchored down and had one fish on before I could get all the rods out. A short while later another rod went down, but before I could get that one in the boat another went down. THEN, before I could get that one in the boat, another rod went down. Not monster fish, but it was quite the exciting little triple.


Caught one other solid fish, missed a couple bites and had a "drag peeler" come unbuttoned before I pulled up stakes and went to hook up with a friend to hunt some more crappie. We added about 6 more keeper crappie to the livewell fishing 1/32nd oz. silver shad panfish assassins on some deep bluffs.

I am back on the water tomorrow (Friday) to film a "Coldwater Catfishing" segment for the Tennessee Wild Side TV show. That means life is good and gettin' better every day!

Wow, nice.