Thread: Father’s Day Crappie and Bass 6/21/2020

Happy Father’s Day everyone. There is a major bass tournament on Chickamauga beginning Tuesday and running through Friday and they were out in force scanning the ledges and had the river looking like a Maytag was hard at work getting your clothes clean. Grin. But Dr Phil and I started early.

It is the New Moon phase and our numbers were smaller, but the fish were bigger. Phil landed a Wanda fish (LM bass) of 3 pounds and my biggest was a 15” tarp Black crappie. I thought it was a bass. Grin. We were spot locked in 24-26 feet of water and the fish were scraping bottom. Friday, the fish I cleaned did not have anything in their stomachs but today, the stomachs are bulging like they were full of eggs and we know that ain’t possible.

We found fish on 3 offshore spots that I like to fish including one that used to be a crappie hotspot but we almost never get to fish it because a bass boat is sitting on it every time that I drive by. I caught a couple of crappie there and had my line broken by a fish.

The current flow was 20,000 cfs with an 81 degree surface temp at 10 am, our quitting time. That is the time that the water chiggers, wake boarders,
Ocean liners, water skiers and pleasure boat riders get out and try to avoid each other. Lolol. Then with the bass pros from out of state down here trying to figure out where to fish during the tournament, zooming up and down the river like they were going to a fire, we thought it prudent to put the Tracker TF 175 on the trailer and go have breakfast.

Bobby Garland lures rule the Chick and that is all we fished with on 3/32 oz jigs. We caught several of our fish just dead sticking the jig just off the bottom in 25 feet of water. If you are patient, you will be rewarded with a bite, if you have located the fish and have confidence in what you are doing. I did everything that I wrote about in the Sticky article that is at the top of the page. Grin.

Beautiful fish, congratulations