Chickamauga Lake report: Crappies for Canine tx. 9/18/2016

[drumking]

The 4th annual Crappies for Canine benefit tournament was conducted on Sunday the 18th as 23 boats and 44 anglers competed for several prizes that were awarded to winners. It was a fun event and lots of crappies were caught.

For Dr Phillip Gawthrop and me, we had a great day of catching crappie. We caught our biggest fish on our first cast at the 7:00 AM start time and had a 7 fish limit by 7:19. The unfortunate thing about that is we had a long tournament and keeping the fish alive was a major problem. They made it until about 12:00 and the weigh in time was 2:00 PM. We ended up having to weigh in 7 smaller fish that were caught later in the day at the weigh in and still managed to finish 9th out of 23 boats. We needed 1.2 lbs to have finished 2nd and I think that we had that weight. But it was dead. Grin. Several other anglers had the same misfortune as we did.

But it was a great benefit tournament for the disabled who receive the service dogs after the dogs have been trained to obey over 70 commands. It is a great cause and I am proud to participate in this great event.

About 1:45 PM, or 15 minutes before the anglers had to quit fishing and make their way back to Island Cove Marine for the weigh in, the skies opened up and brother did it ever break the drought that we have been going through. Grin. It was a frog strangler rain that lasted throughout the weigh in. Thanks to Island Cove Marine, we had a pavilion for everyone to be under while the fish were weighed and stories of fish that got away, dying fish, etc (you know how us anglers talk) were being swapped with each other. Grin.

Dr Phil and I caught most of our fish on Bass Assassin 2" Tiny Shad lures and the hottest color for me at least was Chicken on a Chain. I also caught fish on Blue Grass Crappie Dappers, Crystal Shad Dappers, S&P Phantom/Chartreuse tail, and Black/Chartreuse tail. We caught over 30 keepers throughout the day with a hot bite early until 9:00 AM and then another hot bite from 12:30 until 1:00 PM. The fish were eager early. Darren Caughren and Tim Irwin said that they had a 7 fish limit by 7:09. That is a hot bite. Grin. Other anglers reported that they caught over 60 keepers, but the big fish were no shows for this tournament. The big fish for the tournament was only 1.52 lbs. That is not good for Chickamauga standards.

I want to thank ETCC for all the help in running this tournament. It was the first tournament for their 2016/2017 year. Matt Xenos, you guys did a tremendous job and we can't thank you enough. Thanks to all the sponsors and volunteers who helped support this tournament. And I want to say "Thank you, Lord" for all the rain, even though we all got soaked. We needed it. LOL