Pickwick Dam for the First Time

We're going to fish below the dam for the first time. What should we expect? Should we fish minners? What do y'all do?

Small finger bream n a pork next to the dam for stripers lol

I would go above the dam and get in one of the long creek coves and pull crankbaits

For Stripes get up in the boils below the dam with heavy line and a 2-3 oz sinker, bump Shad or BIG minnows on the bottom drifting in the current seams. Some people use white bucktail jigs or big grubs but the live bait will probably get you more bites most days. The more current the better, check on tva.gov for water release info.

You can bounce minners or shad on the bottom all the way down to the islands on rocky banks and catch bass, cats, drum and just about anything else that swims in there, for that you will want lighter line and weight, I usually run 6lb and whatever size split shot will get it on the bottom without dragging too much.

Bring a lot of hooks and weights because you'll snag a lot, but you'll get a lot of bites too if the current is running, you want 30k cfs or better on the water release.

Hope that helps, that is a really fun place to fish when you hit it right :)

Good report.Thumbs Up

great info Release....thanks!!!!

its great but wear your pfd and be carefulespecially if your in a small boat. this isnt a lake where you can just swim to shore. this can get to be a raging river at times, and you have to deal with barge and yacht wakes. respect the river

We had a good trip! Caught a couple of cats, a couple of bass, and tried the striper fishing. We'll definitely come back.

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I know I'll catch it for either posting the green carp on here or having my big foot in the picture, but any way....we've got a place up on the lake and my duaghter and I went out Sat morning and Sunday morning to fish before we got out the pontoon to pull the tube...we caught a bunch of brean and catfish, but once I caught the 1st bass, she was hooked on the bass lures. We caught about 6 or 7 good size bass sunday morning and I got lucky w 1 4lb smallmouth. Don't know if you were there friday night, but got caught out in the hail storm on the lake. Road it out in a boat house. Like the previous post, always respect the lake. There has already been a couple of deaths this year up there and they could have been avioded w/ life jackets! Always wear the lifejacket, doesn't do anyone any good floating down the lake.....

It ain't all that big of a foot, but it's uglier than most even twice their size. Ugly per inch and you win hands down.

Wannabe...