Nickajack Big Blues and BULL Bream
Goodness, it was a long day on the water. 7 am until 6:30 pm. Scenic City Fishings Charters had two groups today which means I had twice the fun. I hope they did. Started out with Jerry Cornwell and his son Eric. They weren't picky about what we did, so we started out chasing the big boys. Jerry scored first with a 17 lb. blue, a good ice breaker. Then he got a 12# and we got a few other fish. I can't remember the order. It all pales in comparison to when Eric started wrestling "the big one" of the day. He got a good catfish initiation, and as you can see below, had his hands full as Dad just stood by and let Eric take care of business. His 27 lb. blue ended up on the business-end of the "grabbers." That was tops of the day, but again it was not a fast-and-furious catfish morning. I think we put 8 fish in the boat that totaled about 80 lbs. Two "little" 5-pounders drifting the turbines brought our average way down.
After Eric and Jerry left, Ross Malone and his brother-in-law Neal climbed in the boat. We played with catfish for a little while, but then decided to go in search of bluegill. It took a while to figure out a pattern, but when we did, good gosh did we find 'em! I swear it was the biggest averaged-sized bluegill I've ever put in the boat. Nearly every fish we kept was 9-inches plus. They were monsters. I was praying for a 10-inch TARP fish. Never showed. But we ended up with 30 big bulls in the livewell and we were throwing back the bluegill we'd normally be keeping. I tagged a 4-lb. largemouth on a wax worm but after about 6 big jumps, I "long line" released him. We watched a young man bluegill fishing in another boat battle a smallmouth forever. He won... they said the fish hit the 5 lb. mark. Sorry for the long report, but it was a long day... and a good one!
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