Pickwick was calling again! Jon and I talked about it late in the week last week. It was payday and us Government Workers were about to get paid. So, we decided to give it another try. Recall that our last trip had been fairly decent, but slow by the standards that Jon had experienced thus far.
We decided we would stick to the Koger Island area. Our friend and co-worker Keith attended the trip with us. 3 people is normally a crowd, but Jon's Big Easy is 24 feet of awesomeness, so we had plenty of room.
The morning was fairly tough, although it initially looked promising. We started out fishing small islands on the channel Jon and Keith with top water and square bills and I was throwing a weightless Yum Dinger.
All 3 of us caught fish pretty quick, but as the sun rose above the waterline, the bite dropped off.We fished some smaller creeks, which turned out to be pretty treacherous as the water had been dropped a lot. But, Jon and Keith both picked up some fish on the square bill around some stumps and lay downs. I was tossing the weightless Dinger around and either small bass or bream were nipping it to death. I got so tired of whiffing on them that I would let it sit idle and laugh Jon and Keith and the line bounced up and down and zigged from side to side.
We had a little sprinkle and some serious wind, but as it died down, we moved down to Koger's island...and didn't measure a hit. We did, however, watch 5 bald eagles flying around. Wish we could have gotten a picture of them! It was something to see!
Not having any luck, we tried the entry to the creek channel as we had done the previous week. It's a large creek just down from the big steam plant. There were obviously fish in it, as they were busting everywhere and running big balls of shad. But, when you have the real thing, we don't want an artificial bait. While I did register some strikes on top water, nothing got hooked up. We started down the grassline away from the creek and Jon did manage to catch a nice looking 3.5lb largemouth on a Gambler swimbait.
We decided to fish the pumphouses and power stations that I had some luck on last trip. The water was so low that all the rocks were out of the water. I did get to flip my Dinger into some down brush and quickly caught a measuring spot and this guy:
A redeye! Pretty rare fish. Especially in a river. I have caught some small ones in creeks in central Tennessee but never in a large body of water. So, to recap, I had caught a measuring largemouth, spot, and red eye. All I needed was a smallie to hit the grand slam. Now, I know many of you have never heard of the grand slam, but it's when you catch all 4 of the native Black Bass species in one day. And, I was on a smallmouth lake....so...I should be able to do something that has typically been considered "magazine worthy". So, we kept chugging on! Fished some big surface breaking rock piles. I believe Jon caught another small largemouth and a catfish. Out of the blue, the water erupted with fish busting on the surface. I threw my Bama rig and something hit it so hard it straightened out a D-ring! I assume it was a striper. Alas, I was not able to make it happen. In fact, we didn't catch a smallie all day. Real surprising, really. But, again, great times with my friends. We didn't get skunked! And I ALMOST did something pretty special!
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