The warmer weather arrived quickly and the surface temperature rose from 57 degrees to 64 degrees over the Easter weekend, causing the crappie to move into the shallows to spawn. Easter afternoon, after dinner and watching the kids do the Easter egg thing, my wife and I headed to the Tennessee River where she was going to read while I fished. We started around 4:30 and almost immediately were into the crappie. Within an hour I had 12 keepers and several small ones in the boat. Jon Russell was one of the few other fishermen on the lake that afternoon. While we were catching up on things I landed two more keepers, needing only one more fish I tried a stack bed that I had put out several years ago. It paid off as well, giving up the one more I needed for a limit and a few more to be released.
Several fish where caught this weekend. I got reports from the lower end of Watts Barr, Tennessee River, Chickamauga near Dayton, Tellico Lake under docks, and Loudon in the Turkey Creek and Concord area. Most fish were caught on natural colors like Tennessee Shad, blue shiner, and smoke or a fly tip with a minnow. Typical colors like chartreuse, white, and red & white did not produce as well as usual.
Ethan and Eon Barnett, who are both avid bass fisherman and whiling to regress to other species when fishing with me, joined me on the next trip, where we caught several fish including the 23 keeper crappie and a 15 inch fish that weighted 1