It is officially that time of year here in East Tennessee. Water temps have heated up to spawning levels and the big blue cats are on the nest making them near impossible to catch. I normally leave the catfish gear at home during the month of June but this tournament has encouraged me to continue on. I went out on Saturday 6-10-17 to fish with my friend Travis. We got a late start in hopes of avoiding the pleasure boat crowds. Fishing at night is a great way to beat the heat and avoid a lot of the boaters during these hot summer months. Check back on Wednesday for a post about night fishing safety and rigging tips.
We anchored down on our first spot around 9pm. TVA was pushing considerably less current that night compared to what they have been running recently. I am not sure if it was that or just the spawn in general that affected our fishing but even the dink size blues were nowhere to be found. I ended up catching one dink blue and Travis caught a small striped bass. That was the only action we had the entire trip. TVA shut the current off completely at 1 am so we called it quits and went home with our tails between our legs.
On Monday 6-12-17, I headed back out to fish for my final time in this tournament. The tournament didn't officially end until the 15th but that day was my last chance to fish for it. I decided to do some ledge fishing, There is never a wrong time to fish ledges but the post spawn time period has always served me well on that particular ledge. I was hoping to find some fish that had maybe spawned early and had already moved off the beds. I anchored down and baited my lines with some freshly caught bluegill. My plan was to simply move down the ledge in increments every 30 minutes or so until I found the fish. It didn't take long to hook up. A striped bass had taken the bait which is always a fun fight. It wasn't big enough to cull any of my other submissions but it was still a blast to catch.
I ended up catching a total of 5 striped bass as I made my way down the ledge. They were all in that 25-32" range. I also caught a couple of small flatheads as well before ending the night with a dink blue cat. Unfortunately, I was not able to add any more points to my score but I still had a lot of fun. I never complain about catching stripers and flatheads. My only wish is that I could catch them more consistently. Here are the video highlights from the trip.
