Two friends from Ohio, David and Jamie came down for a little visiting and fishing over the long Memorial Day weekend. The fishing started out slow, with a trip below Watts bar dam on Friday. Two days earlier we had a great trip at the same location, catching large white bass, largemouth bass, stripers, drum, and catfish all on live bait; which was plentiful below the dam. On the later trip we had to run down river to sewie creek to catch bait. This should have tipped us off that the fishing would be slow. If not for the large amount of catfish and drum below the dam, the fishing would have been a bust.
The next day my brother and Jamie started out crappie fishing. While David entertained the family jet skiing and tubing. The crappie fishing was much better than expected, with the day producing a limit for both fishermen.
That evening the two joined me for some striper fishing below Ft. Loudon dam. Bait was easy two catch. The smaller skip jack shad were below Tellico Dam and the gizzard shad were thick below Ft. Loudon dam. We started fishing for white bass with smaller skip jack shad around the short wing wall that separates the rougher discharge waters from the calmer water below the spill waves. We caught several white bass and a few drum and small stripers. This area has been holding a few 1 1/2 to 2 ft sturgeons that can be seen swimming just under the surface against the wing wall since TWRA stocked them a few years ago. We decided to try for some bigger stripers. By this time we had the water to our self. We got some bigger gizzard shad for bait and fished the discharge with great success. The stripers were in the 16 pound range with one hybrid (Cherokee bass) being about 30 inches long. It will be added to my slow growing list of Tennessee Angler Recognition Program certificates.
The next day my brother and Jamie limited out again on crappie by mid afternoon. By late afternoon we packed their cooler full of fillets and sent them on their way. They were already planning a return striper trip soon. Without any plans I decided to give coworker and friend Ed Hardin a call to see if he would join me for some more striper fishing that afternoon. Again bait was easy to get and fish were being caught. We started catching a few white bass, drum, catfish, and small stripers. While waiting for the fishing pressure to die down a little. I watched one boat having great success with a chartreuse jig tipped with a twister tail grub.
Within a little while we had it pretty much to ourselves except for the jig fishermen which were still catching fish. We were doing pretty good free lining gizzard shad in the discharge, but could see stripers chasing shad in the calmer water below the spill waves. After watching them for a while, we tied on some top water lures and eased over to the surface feeding fish. Ed started out doing much better with a large red fin than I with a Zara spook. Shortly I changed to a red fin and we caught fish until dark with several fish pushing the twenty pound mark.
Take someone fishing, Greg Jones
