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Follow my Fish of 2019
November has been really, really special the last two years on Wheeler. I was starting to wonder this year because despite spending a lot of time on the water, it wasn't producing nearly the same as last year. Initially, I believed it was because this time last year, the water was up, the current was up, and we hadn't had such a brutally hot and long summer. TVA dropped Wheeler really, really low last month and there hasn't been a ton of rain.
Pulling up posts from last year, which you can click on below, it was pretty obvious what the differences have been. Water level and current. We were seeing 75,000 CFS and high water, which positioned fish tightly to break lines and in big groups. A day here or there, we've had decent current, but it's typically been in the 30,000s.
I've fished several wildcats this November and while we've done extremely well in them in terms of winning, weights haven't been stellar. We've fished mostly out of Ingalls in Decatur. Some days we've stuck around Decatur. Some we've run up river. It hasn't seemed to matter. The best bags we've seen came on Veteran's Day when we had a tournament out of Ditto. Some competitors had a 17-pound bag with two massive smallies. Second was 12 pounds and the weights plummeted after that. When we've won, it's been less than 12 pounds to take the win. That's a far cry from what we were seeing last year.
Interestingly enough, we've caught our better fish around Decatur, literally within two miles of the ramp. It makes it really hard to justify running to the areas we know best, especially early in the mornings when it's super cold. Until last week, we hadn't bothered to fish the upper end of the lake at all because it just hasn't produced.
In regards to Decatur, the best baits have easily been the A-rig. I've tried not to throw it, letting Josh throw it in front of me while I fished a variety of other baits, but it's been mostly futility. We've caught them on a spinnerbait as well, with Wyatt having caught several nice ones in the same areas that the A-rig has produced. Find the bait and throw the flashy baits at them.
Starting last week, we started fishing the upper end a bit more. The first trip, we found that the fish were acting mostly the same as the ones in Decatur. They would only eat the rig and occasionally a single swimbait. I would fish a shakey head and a jig and I simply could not get bit. They also wouldn't touch a crank or a spinnerbait. On Friday, our best five went around 14 pounds, anchored by this massive largemouth I caught. We caught around 20 or so and it was a good day, but we had to cover a TON of water to find them.
Last Saturday, Josh did all the hard work, with me only catching a single one of our best five. We did find that the fish were starting to group up, but we couldn't find bigger bites and the smallies were nowhere to be found. All we could find were spots. We culled and culled, but could only get 10 pounds, which was still enough to win.
I was out on business the following few days and then decided to go fishing solo. I put in at Ditto and hit some of my favorite spots from last year. If you read those reports, what you will see is that I started catching small spots, then days later it was bigger spots, then the smallies moved in. So, when I started catching decent spots, I finally had some sort of confidence that the fishing was finally getting better. I moved around a good bit that day and found that they were finally hitting crankbaits, but still wouldn't touch a jig or shakey head. I caught around 20 fish, but nothing bigger than three pounds. Still, it was a positive sign.
So, I got out yesterday for my birthday. I headed down river to some bluffs with rock piles, marked some fish on the Lowerance, backed off and laid a jig in there. First few casts, I got bit with one pulling off as she went to deeper water. I could tell it was a big smallie. Fired it back in and boated what would be my biggest of the day, a 5.25 smallie. She went over 19 inches long and was completely fed up.
Couldn't get bit again, so I headed to the mouth of a creek. Caught a few on a 6XD, which was a change. Mostly, these were spots but there were some largemouth. Was headed to a bluff when I saw a boat fishing it, so I stopped short of where I normally would fish and my first cast on a 6XD netted me 4-pound smallie.
Eventually that boat left and I fished a deep drop off that has fish piled on it. Caught a few two pound spots on a swimbait, but they weren't biting as good as I would like so I kept on moving. At this point, I thought I had a good bag going. That escalated quickly.
I was running a rip rap bank were I've caught a ton of smallies, alternating between a jig and a crank, and when this fish hit, I knew it wasn't a smallie so I assumed it was a drum. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a five pound largemouth! It happened so fast that I had to boat flip her and boy was that fun.
Again, I thought the day couldn't get better. I had 17 pounds or so. Boat flipped a 3.5 pound largemouth on a shakey head, the only one of the day on a shakey head. Now I had four nice fish and one decent spot. I decided to make a little longer drift down a bank of rip rap than I normally do and BAM, a smallie rocked my jig. Swung her aboard. Another four pounder.
By the end of the afternoon, I had 21 pounds in my best five, catching around 20 fish. Amazingly enough, I had ZERO non-keepers. The majority of fish came on a 6XD.
I talked to a guy at Ditto and he was asking me where and how I caught fish. Truth is, I caught fish everywhere I went, even places I don't normally fish. They were just biting yesterday. I think it had a lot to do with the water temps hovering around 58 in combination to the flow of 45,000 CFS and the cloudless skies.