Watts Bar Lake Question

Novorandall and I are going to get up Friday and drive a couple hours to try Watts Bar. We have no game plan and never fished it before. We are looking to launch off of Exit 72 and head down to Paint rock(?) and Stamp Creek. Don''t know what to do from there. Is this a plug trolling lake or do we need to find brush piles and minnow fish them? Not looking for secret spots just a little help to get going. We eventually want to start fishing the East Tn Crappie tourneys but want to learn some of these before we commit. Thanks

I recommend fishing brush piles. Also, I am a member of the East TN Crappie Club and fished many of the lakes for the first time during tournaments. Don't wait to start fishing with the club. You will have fun. Not a lot of pressure.


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I've fished the lake for decades, mostly in April & Oct ... and I've never fished above the 58 bridge. In fact, I've never fished upriver from Caney Creek. I've spent most of my time fishing between King Creek & Whites Creek. Most of my fishing has been shooting docks or casting jigs to deep fallen trees.

The TWRA doesn't seem to take much notice of Watts Bar :banghead ... they don't have a current "fishing report" for the lake, and their "fish attractor" map on the website is a picture of the dam :Doh: (which is probably no biggie, since most of them are long gone)

If I was going to fish the area you intend to fish ... I'd go with their Chickamauga report : (copied from TWRA website) "Crappie: Good. Deep docks, brush piles in deeper open bays"

Thank you all for the replies. Probably try to fish some deep brush and then pull cranks....we'll see

I live on the lake and fish it a lot. The bays on the lake are over ran with weeds so if you want to pull cranks stay on the main lake or deeper coves.Shoot the deeper docks, 10 ft or more, and fish the brush piles. The fishing has been real slow put it is starting to come on.