Advice on fishing below Guntersville dam

I have never fished from a boat below any dam. My buddy wants to go catfish below Guntersville dam Saturday morning. He has gone many times there with his dad and is confident he knows what he is doing. I'm a little paranoid as I have never tried it. Any advice or is it pretty much just use common sense and you'll be alright? I think our tentative plan is to pull up near the dam and drop out a few jugs and drift while bumping the bottom with rod and reel.

So any specific advice for boating below the dam and/or catfishing tips for this time of year would be appreciated.

Common sense is the key. You have to wear life jackets when you are up within a certain distance of the dam, it has been several years since I have fished below Guntersville. Good luck the catfish were really biting last week, we caught several while fishing for bream in the Decatur area.

Caught a 27 lb blue Tuesday evening on a sassy shad. Just don't anchor your boat close to the dam in the tailraces. If they open the turbines enough quickly you can get in trouble quickly. Current is the number 1 factor below the dam. My experience...no current , no fish. As mentioned above...common sense goes a long way.

The law states you must have your life preserver ON if you are 800 yards or closer to the dam. Preserver In the boat but not on will get you a ticket. It is a good thing to have it on as like has been stated before sudden surges of water can occur if you are close to the turbines. Also watch out for Barges as they are big and might not see you although they stay in the main river channel. The wake of a fast moving one creates some very large swells and waves at times.

Thanks for the replies guys. I knew about the life jacket rules and we will definitely wear ours. I'm not sure if we will try to anchor or not but I'll make sure to keep a couple of good knives on me as I've heard that's important in case you have to cut a line die to a combo of raising water and stuck anchor.

probably already out there, here is where i find most of my fish below dams. Right where two generators meet there is an eddie created and the water will sometimes flow towards the dam. If you can find a spot like that say 25 yards from the dam wall you will get a lot of fish between the generators. It works great at Wilson and Wheeler. I will be catching big blue cat when no other boat around is getting them, Fish are lazy and look for places with less current to rest.

I've heard "below" the dam referred to as both sides. I have only fished the lake side via bass boat. There, you basically wait until they turn the turbines on. Then you realize just how much it turns on the entire lake - all the way past Hollywood, lol. The fish go nuts. It's like Pavlov's dog. It triggers a tremendous feeding frenzy. You never really know when they'll turn up the volume, it's according to usage, but this time of the year you'll see it dead from about midnight until 6-9 in the a.m. before the first surge. And, TVA does put on the internet their hourly usage and projections, but still, you just sort of have to be there when all is said and done.

The depth is around 30 plus feet and they're busting the surface like crazy. If you know your fish splashes (you really can tell them apart) you can actually do very well in 30 foot of water catching bass on top water. With all the chopping and grinding, there are some morph size fish around the dam. People on the river side used to use giant treble hooks and snag fish, some of the most unbelievable creatures you've ever seen along the rock walkway wall they had in the 70s.

Back to the lake side. It's best to get toward the sides of the actual ledges, right where it drops. Sit around the drops, wait for them to turn it on and hang on to your rod and reel. There are so many ways to fish, really take your pick because it's wild for sure.

So we did go Saturday morning below the dam (river side to be clear). Didn't too well but had fun.

Began by forward idling towards the dam, kind of holding position with the motor, while bumping 3oz weights with rooster liver. Buddy caught a small 2-3 lb blue cat right off the bat. We followed that up with about 5 or 6 misses but no fish staying in that location for about 45 minutes. We then motored all the way to the dam tried there for a while. I managed 3 small channel cats but no one else got anything there. My other buddy threw out a cork with a worm and caught a couple of bluegill and then caught a bunch of small drum until he ran out of worms. We used the bluegill as cut bait but still had no luck. Finally as it began to heat up around 9am, we headed down river to explore. We got back to the dam around 11 and fished for another hour with no luck and left at 12.

Despite not catching much, it was a fun trip and a good learning experience. I'd really like to try to anchor in the current 40-50 yards down from the dam in the future although I'm not sure how feasible that is. We got hung up and broke off maybe 5 times in that area and seems like anchors may end up getting hung as well.

The crickets work great around the rocks for Gills and shell crackers and the walls around the damn hold fish too..

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Originally Posted by alabamaal

The crickets work great around the rocks for Gills and shell crackers and the walls around the damn hold fish too..

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Next time I go, I plan on taking an assortment of live bait including worms, crickets, and minnows. Also try to catch some bait. That way if I don't have any luck with catfish or stripe, I can try gills and crappie.