Thread: Woods Res and Normandy Reports

Good Sunday morning to all this holiday weekend. I hope and pray all are safe and return back to crappie.com for more crappie news when our Memorial Day weekend is over. Although there are so so many young folks and middle aged folks like my generation, who have had life so good our entire lives, we can not fully appreciate the happiness of our freedom because we have not had much fear ever of ever losing it. This is partly because we have grown up in this country living under the shelter of what those who went before us did for us in past wars and conflicts and we need to at least learn to stop and appreciate this WAS done for us to have our happiness and our freedom. Freedom was NOT FREE nor will it always be if we don't continue to know its only free to us because somebody else paid for it. Just a huge thank you to our military from the past and the present. Because you gave, and give, I live a life without being scared on a daily basis.
Anyway, my point today with this post was to give a report today for Woods Reservoir and Normandy Lake so here it goes.

Woods Reservoir, as I see it....
In years past I've seen spawn come and go early but that didn't happen in 2014. We had a much tougher winter with much colder water temperatures that we had a few factors that slowed our spring warm up down compared to other years. One thing that happened this year that nobody has talked to me much about is the lake turned over this spring. Our lakes turn over for sure every fall in Middle Tennessee but they don't always in our middle Tennessee springs. This is due to us usually not having extreme cold weather and ice form on our lakes, but we did this last winter, thus a spring turn over did happen on Woods and Tims for sure. I was NOT up at Normandy much but I would say it was very possible it did as well. During turnover time, you just about can not buy a fish for a week or two. Anyway, that delayed our fish some and when the March time frame came, we had some of the factors right, such as the moon phase as always but the water temps were not to the fish's liking yet, thus they waited for April. This year we found our March pattern worked well in April as there were so many fish still just getting ready to spawn and had not yet done so. Long story shortened, its now May 25th, and this last two weeks has been when a big part of our spawn has taken place in our area. Normally by now its completely post spawn. Yesterday we spent at least half the day checking out new areas and places and still caught 21 total keepers and took 18 of those home to clean and have inspected. After the fish were cleaned, it was noticed that only 4 of the 18 had any eggs in them as opposed to the last 3 weeks, most fish caught were still with eggs and the tails on the males were not bead beaten like they are now. They are still very much so catch able and there is still time to get them fattening up for the summer that is coming where they will tend to slow some in the very hot water but still be very catch able as we who fish summer patterns know well.

Spent only a couple weekends up Normandy in May and sometimes its decent catches and sometimes not. The bigger fish year classes seems like they are down in numbers compared to years past as I just don't find the amount of quality fish anywhere to be found like before.. I cant prove it, nor would I argue with anybody over it, but I do believe the last drought year hurt the total population on Normandy as there were just so many anglers having so much success fishing there. Lots of big fish, a water table drastically reduced by drought conditions and several anglers enjoying the easier than normal harvest, you have a combination for making the fishing tough in the next year or two or after with waters back up and fish totals down some. We are seeing all the signs of replacement fish though through natural means and by the work of the TWRA as they do an excellent job of keeping these lakes managed and full of fish for us. They just could not control the huge loss of water due to no rain, thus some possible over harvesting took place, or more harvesting took place than normal. Point is, yes there are good fish up Normandy, but they are or have been few and far between so far this year. We did see a much improved weigh in there in Mays tourney over any of the others we have had there since last December.

Its not my thing really but you should be able to really catch some nice blue gill and shell cracker this weekend, especially about Monday as its traditionally always good here on Memorial Day blue gill, shell cracker and brim fishing.............. Until next report time, stay safe on the water, look were your going, be courteous and alert as to what your doing at all times while operating a boat. We dont want any reports of boating accidents.... GCF

Being close and time short, I've worked Woods over during the past 6 weeks or so. Caught em shallow from just before the April full moon and the pattern began to change. Moved a little deeper and got right back into em. As things progressed I had a thought that if the depth would permit I'd give the cranks a try. I had a time. A couple of days were exceptional with some 14" fish coming to the boat. I noticed today that I haven't used a quarter tank of fuel in all this time. I like this, and my wallet does too. Drop the boat in, drop the TM and start catching fish in short order. Last week the cranks slowed down some and I went in search of in the same area, going with the idea that they don't move far. I slowed down and got the spider gear out and had a good time this morning til about 9:30 and went to spend time with the wife, 6 good keepers released before going to the ramp. I look forward to the summer pattern of trolling cranks and the annual visit from my Granddaughter, we always have such a ball. Hope y"all get out, they're there if you spend a little time looking. With luck I'll make the next tourney.