Fishing Report for Pickwick 9/30/14

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In case you don't follow me on Facebook (which you should), I will be out of town for the next two weeks...shoved up inside a rocket motor for 12 hours a day. So, I decided to get out and do some fishing. Jon and I made plans back on Saturday or so. You know, when we were supposed to have gobs of rain. With the rainfall and a small cold front, I figured that the water on Pickwick would be up a little (they are draining it down due to some TVA problems), the current would kick up, and the water temp would be about pppuurrrrffeecct for the fish to get active. 

But, the weathermen strike again! No rain. None. But, we had already made our plans. Considering how much of an ordeal it is to fish the lower end of Pickwick, we didn't want to change our plans so late in the game. Now, if you recall, we fished Pickwick a bunch during the Government Shutdown last year and had an absolute riot in Waterloo. The largemouth were stacked in grasslines and we caught both numbers and size! Click here to read the report and watch the vid!

Well, we didn't get started fishing until around 830 due to road construction on the Natchez Trace Parkway. We get on the water and check the the TVA app. No current. None. Ugh. We might not be REAL smart, but we have figured out that low water levels, no current, and high skies make for a long day. 

But, within the first 5 minutes of fishing grass lines around the main channel, I had 5 blow ups on my Sammy. Unfortunately, none of them stuck. I never once felt on on the line. The fish were fairly active for the first 30 minutes or so and we watched them running shad up and down the grassline, sometimes tossing them 3 feet in the air. Because the shad were around 2 inches long and the Sammy is about double that, I downsized the bait to a smaller Zara Spook. No takers. At least the view was cool. That is the old Colbert Ferry from before the TVA flooded it. 

After hammering the grass line that we have slayed the fish on in the past, we moved upriver to the Natchez bridge only to find zero active fish.

At this point, it was getting hot. I mean, hot. And the Big Easy is an aluminum oven. Since we had to be on the road pretty early, we stopped at a place that we had caught smallies in the past. In fact, on this spot I caught 3 different species of black bass. You can read about it here. 

Anyway, having abandoned my power fishing gear, I went to the old stand bye, the PowerTeam Lures Sick Stick on a PTL pea head. Here is a link to the cheapest place to buy them...good ole Amazon.

Anyways, there is one particular overhanding tree that I have caught multiple fish every time I have fished it. Unfortunately, with the lowered water level, only bits and pieces are still submereged. But, enough of it was still under water that I was able to hop the ole stick bait around and get a taker. When he latched on it, I about snatched him into my own face. Poor guy.

We noticed that there was current on this spot, which caused us to rocket down stream. It was odd, because there wasn't any current elsewhere. After some inspection, we figured out that the bend in the river, just up stream, caused what little flow there was to build against this bluff. That seemed to be the ticket as Jon pulled in a nice smallie on a crankbait pretty quick.

But, the stretch with current was only about 50 yards long and we soon found ourselves in stagnant water. We motored back up stream and repeated the process, which lead to more a few more bites plus another nice smallie.

After we completed the drift, we were both extremely hot and time was running out on us, as I had a 6pm softball game and about 3 hours of travel time in between. We headed in, only after we tweaked his Humminbird 997 unit. Amazingly, as we were preparing to put the boat on the trailer, we graphed some of the prettiest looking areas. We found a rocky point in 18 feet that featured a nice bait ball and a lot of solid arches stacked together. I have never seen a prettier looking smallie setup. I can't wait to fish it next time....whenever that may be.