Thread: Douglas report

Thanks for the help on getting minnows. The dam store had plenty. We fot to the lake around 3:30 with plans to single pole and see if we could find a few crappie. Only been there crappie fishing one other time. Ended up in the back of a creek and found some brush. Ended up with 14 keepers before dark. Some on jigs and some on minnows. Fished after dark for bass and just had one smallmouth. Should have went earlier and crappie fished only but that is the way it goes. It was my son’s 14th birthday and he fittingly out caught me 3-1. Fun day. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

No, we didn't. Three "decent" anglers over 2days, and all we could manage was :1 Bluegill - 1 12" Smallmouth - 2 11" Black Crappie .... all caught casting jigs to downed trees & shooting docks. The only thing I have in our defense was the water temps & weather. We got run off the lake by the rain two afternoons, but I'm not sure having been able to fish then would have changed our outcome.

Watts Bar seems to be about a month behind in the movement of the fish, likely due to the higher than normal water temps. Maybe in a couple of weeks it will be better, but you also have to consider that TVA will start dropping the lake in Nov. Now that might crank'em up or it might push'em back out deep .... seems like every year they change how they react to the current conditions at that time.

We saw schools of Shad about everywhere we went .... some schooled on the surface & at the same time pods of them were anywhere from 10ft to 25ft deep. Didn't seem to matter whether we were in a creek or out on the main lake, the story was the same. We also did not see any "jumps", other than a single fish here & there, even though the Shad were all over the surface at times. We didn't even see many Bluegill around the bank, docks, or marina boat slips ... and all the bites we got from them were "deep" (8-10ft down).

Most other anglers we talked to were mostly Bass fishing, and having decent success on topwater lures, but even those also fishing with minnows for Crappie were only catching dinks (and only a couple of those).

If you know of some large brushpiles in 20-30fow ... I'd say try them first, before fishing anything shallower.

Pappy, I learned how to fish on Watts Bar beginning in the late 60’s and it can be a fabulous lake one day and the Dead Sea the next day. It has big crappie in it but at times they are very hard to find.