Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!
Follow my Fish of 2019
Has it really been a month since I posted? I reckon it has. There's a reason for that. I haven't been fishing much. I've been able to fish the Ditto Wildcat about every other week and one week, Wyatt and I even got to fish the day before. It's been a few months since I fished more than one day in a week and typically I am going weeks in between fishing.
Again, there are reasons for this. First, just haven't had the time. We've moved. All three kids are in sports with one of them playing hockey AND football.
Second, the last month has been awful, at least on Wheeler. Even when there has been current, which there HAS been good current on some Thursdays, the fish just won't bite. Now, Wyatt and I did have a 12 pound sack that didn't include a five pounder that we broke a rod on trying to boat flip it. But the very next day, Josh and I couldn't catch anything even remotely the same size as the fish we had caught just 24 hours before, though we did at least catch some decent numbers. The Ditto Classic is this Thursday and Friday, so it would be a great time to find some fish.....
However, this report is for Wilson. Our club had a tournament this past weekend and I had to fish it so that I could make the Classic. However, Brad was on vacay and I had to burn a guest pass and get Josh to come fish with me. Neither of us had fished Wilson in....oh......months? Like at least four months.
Our game plan was to fish shallow at day break and then go out to the 30-35 foot depths and look for off-shore schools, which Wyatt had told me to find. However, Saturday morning, Wyatt sent me a cryptic text that said, hey, if they aren't there, keep moving. Considering that's the only thing we had to go on, it opened up the day with a lot of skepticism. So did 85.6 degree water at 5AM.
So, we hit Shoal Creek first in a spot that hasn't been good for me in the last few years, but has been one of the best spots I've found, when it's on. Shocker, it wasn't. We had a bite or two, caught some short fish. But it became pretty obvious that we weren't in the right place so we headed to McKerrnan Creek and started scanning the 30-35 foot ledge, specifically a ditch that ran along the leading edge of a flat. We marked a few fish here and there, but nothing that looked promising, though we did make some casts. Nothing.
We moved up onto the flat and got a bite or two, but nothing in the boat. Got on the grass up shallow and Josh boated a first keeper, down the grass some more, another small one. We turned around and fished the grassline again, but didn't get any more. So, we moved to the other main river point of McKerrnan and I picked up first number three, a nice three pounder, on a spinner bait. We were up tight to the grass, so I saw the flash, and I tried to boat flip it, thinking it was just a keeper. First flip failed spectacularly. Second was successful.
At the end of a grassline was a dock and Josh got bit, I got bit, but it was bream bites. I flipped my shakey head to the steps of the dock and the line shot sideways. I set the hook and the fish didn't move an inch. Just kept pulling towards the deeper water. Then she tried to jump, but just rolled. I yelled for the net. She tried several times to jump, but she was too big. Eventually we netted the beast. Eight pound head with a five pound body, but still, it was the kind of fish we needed, especially in a three fish tournament.
After trying to establish a pattern, we established that there was no pattern nor was there any bait that caught them better. Essentially every fish we had caught had come off a different bait.
Around noon, we checked the current on the TVA app and saw that it had gone from 19,000 CFS to around 32,000 at around noon. An hour would give the fish enough time to get into a stable condition, so we headed to Wheeler dam.
We fished up and down the seams without getting bit, but eventually I had two consecutive fish hit a 5XD. Neither got in the boat, but neither would have helped. Josh did cull up once with a decent little smallie. He caught another couple and I didn't get bit the rest of the day.
Our 10.5 pounds was enough to win with second and third being right there around our weight, but just not with a kicker. After what has been the toughest year I can remember, it sure felt good to get back to winning ways!
