Thread: Back from Watts Bar ...

and once again we managed to pick a date that was a couple of weeks too early for the Fall dock shooting for Black Crappie on Watts Bar Lake :D

Nonetheless ... we did manage to catch some "size", even though we didn't catch "numbers".

Water temp - 68deg
Water cond - Summer Pool .. clear to 2-4ft
Depth most fish caught - 18-20ft deep in 22-24ft of water
Bait - jighead tipped with minnow (deep water brush) ... yellow/char solid body jig (Vertical Casting docks)
Weather - Thur (sunny & cool) Fri (intermittant rain showers) Sat (overcast & windy)

We averaged around 10 fish per day (Thurs afternoon, Friday, Sat) but only had 3 keepers on Thur & Fri and 6 keepers on Sat. But, the size was much better than normal ... as we were getting into mostly White Crappie, whereas we would normally be catching Black Crappie. When going to Watts Bar, on our Fall trip, we expect to be catching 1lb Black Crappie, dock shooting. When the docks failed to produce much, we went to Plan B ... got some minners and went to some deep water trees.
Didn't take many pics, but these tell the tale :

Saturday's haul (top Crappie is 10" - Gill is about 8")



Me holding 4 of the "bigguns"



Sunday morning we were greeted with this



Special thanks to DonG - for getting those jig bodies for Paul. He put a whoopin on me with them (dock shooting). He caught a Blacknose that would go about 1.5lbs or better, and most all the keepers on Thurs & Fri. I salvaged my respect on Sat ... catching all 6 keeper Crappie, & the Catfish. He did manage the nice Gill, though :p
Special thanks to "Killer", of Watts Bar Crappie Tournament fame, for showing us the honeyhole known as "The Slide" (we even got to hear the McCaunahans "get out of my honeyhole alarm siren" ... for over an hour :rolleyes: ... but, we just kept on fishing :p )
And a special thanks to Arrowhead Resort Marina & Restaurant ... for the great accomodations & food. We'll be back

... cp

Thanks for the report! I see much better fishing coming with cooler water temps.