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Follow my Fish of 2019
After our solid finish on Weiss Lake, I was thinking I turned the corner.
This report is actually for two different days on two different ends of the lake. First, we fished the Thursday night Ditto Wildcat tournament. TVA was pulling about 45K CFS and we simply haven't had enough luck junk fishing to warrant sticking around the Ditto area, so we ran towards the dam. I had gone through some of my older fishing reports and had seen that while the off-shore bite wasn't likely to be great, it was likely better than fishing shallow stuff. Suffice to say, we expected weights to be down as they typically are the first week of May. Usually it is the third week of May before the fishing really gets hot.
This report is actually for two different days on two different ends of the lake. First, we fished the Thursday night Ditto Wildcat tournament. TVA was pulling about 45K CFS and we simply haven't had enough luck junk fishing to warrant sticking around the Ditto area, so we ran towards the dam. I had gone through some of my older fishing reports and had seen that while the off-shore bite wasn't likely to be great, it was likely better than fishing shallow stuff. Suffice to say, we expected weights to be down as they typically are the first week of May. Usually it is the third week of May before the fishing really gets hot.
We were able to get on one of the points from one of the creeks above the Flint river. As expected, the bite wasn't quite the fast and furious that it should be in two weeks. In two weeks, the fish will likely be hitting anything you throw and the deep cranking bite is phenomenal. This week, the fish were extremely skittish and it took around 20 minutes to catch the first measuring fish. I definitely noticed that my bite came on a shell bed at the bottom of the drop. When I made my next cast, I didn't get on that shell bed and I didn't get bit.
I spent the next few casts just trying to located that spot and eventually I did. First few casts, I worked a shakey head across them and didn't get bit. So, the next cast, I just let the worm sit on the bottom. It took what felt like 2 minutes and eventually a fish bit. I continued to repeat this pattern and was able to call my shots. The issue was that we began culling, but the culls were so small they weren't worth doing. We were catching plenty of fish, but it was taking five minutes per cast with no real gain in weight.
We decided to go looking for a big bite. First spots we wanted to fish were on the face of the dam, but the wind was bad in one spot and a barge came out of the lock and blocked an entire wing-wall. Our other spot was covered with bank fishermen. We decided to fish for smallies for while, but couldn't get bit on the north bank, a spot that has typically been solid this time of year.
With the sun winding down, we ran back down river to fish some junk fishing areas, but to no avail. At weigh in, we found out that we had made the mistake of leaving biting fish. Essentially everyone had done the same thing we had done: left biting fish to find a kicker, but no one had a kicker. The winning weight was just a tick over 10 pounds thanks to a four pound smallie. Second was around 9.5, third was 9 and we had just 8.85. Had we just waded through the fish, we likely would have caught a larger one to put us over the top. Alas, we didn't.
Saturday, we had a club tournament out of First Creek. I had not fished down there since last year, but Brad had been twice. Both trips had solid results. His better trip had been a ledge spot in Spring Creek where he caught a six and a four before leaving the fish. His other trip had produced a 10 pound limit, which would have been a solid day, considering what I had seen Thursday night. He found those fish on a secondary point near First Creek.
We started the day at the second spot and I quickly caught a small smallie on a spinner bait. Considering the weather, with the overcast skies and rain, I thought I had the right bait in my hand. But, we covered the 50 yard stretch without catching another fish where he had caught five or so in 15 minutes the day before. Maybe it was just a timing thing.
We moved into spring creek to find the ledge fish had completely disappeared. Brad had said they were post-spawn fish when he caught them, so it was a surprise to find they had moved. We then decided to fish real shallow and while we did catch fish on chatterbaits and spinnerbaits, none of them were worth much.
Around noon, we did what we had hoped we wouldn't have to do: resort to history. We moved out to main river points and pockets. First pass through these didn't yield anything. We used a collection of baits, specifically moving baits.
The sun eventually came out and the fish flipped the switch. The only thing they would hit was a shakey head, but it didn't matter where in these little pockets you threw it, they were eating. We were catching great numbers and culling, but we could not get anything more than 2.5 pounds to bite. The later in the afternoon it got, the less they were biting, which I suspect had something to do with the cloud cover.
We had around 9 pounds with the winning bag being 12. Everyone seemed to catch fish and we ended up having a solid day that made me feel better about losing.
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