Dec 12, 2019 Nickajack crappie trip

My friend, Tommy Y, and I finally got together for a crappie trip on Nickajack lake this morning. It has been a long time coming. It was cold, but we had a lot of fun for the 3 hours that we fished.

The bite began as soon as we reach our destination as I hooked a nice crappie on my second cast only to have it pull off just a few feet from the live well. Grin

But Tommy, having local knowledge and me being stubborn and wanted to experiment with different lures, caught most of our limit of really good fish with most being a pound or more. I did catch a few.

TVA was running 78,000+ cfs on the Nick this morning and we fished a spot on the main river channel with 1/8 oz jig heads with the boat sitting in 42-46 feet of water and the fish suspended 15-20 feet down mostly.

I think this is the first time in 4 years that I have been to Nickajack or maybe even longer than that. It isn’t very far for me to drive, about 45 minutes, but the ramp at Marion County is tricky and boats must be launched at an angle to prevent the wheels on trailer from dropping off the ramp.

Tommy showed me how to safely launch my boat when/if I go back down there to fish. I’ll fish with him if I get another invite. Lolol.

This was my first crappie trip in about 6-7 weeks. I have been and will continue to fish for Stripers until water temp falls below 46 degrees. Then I will crappie and Bluegill fish with maybe a little shellcracker fishing thrown in for good measure.

Water temp was 50 degrees and it was below freezing air temp when we launched just before daylight.

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Nice catch, all of those look like quality fish. Maybe you should visit Nickajack more often :biggrin

Productive morning!

Fun times for sure! Thanks for sharing

Good stuff DK!!

Were you fishing above or below the dam?

Ray

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Originally Posted by rayzor65

Were you fishing above or below the dam?

Ray

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All I can say is that we were above the dam, but I don’t know how far. I’m not too familiar with the Nick.

Dang I haven't seen tommy or nickajack in a day or two myself.
I remember back when Tommy used to post reports on slaying the crappie down there on nickajack.

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Originally Posted by Pantastic

Dang I haven't seen tommy or nickajack in a day or two myself.
I remember back when Tommy used to post reports on slaying the crappie down there on nickajack.

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He still is, Gene. Just being hush hush about it though. Grin. He does post on Facebook quite a lot. He is a great guy. The techniques that I taught him through Pat Ryan made a crappie machine out of him and he has forsaken bass fishing.

Good looking mess of fish

Your using the wrong ramp at Marion county park if thats where you put in. When you turn into the park just go strait. That ramp is good. If you turned left and went to the ramp I think you did it is awful!

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Originally Posted by footballcoach

Your using the wrong ramp at Marion county park if thats where you put in. When you turn into the park just go strait. That ramp is good. If you turned left and went to the ramp I think you did it is awful!

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We went to the ramp where all the tournaments are weighed in. Where the portapotty is. That ramp drops off the end and several trailers have had axles damaged trying to pull them back out. Boats need to be launched on an angle to prevent them from dropping off.. The first little ramp on the left as you pull into the park isn’t the one where we launched.

:ThumbsUp