Christmas Eve Fishing

[nomad60]

The Lord answered my prayers and for once, there was a nice day weather-wise which coincided with me being off work. I was going to hit the main river but it was the color of chocolate, there were logs floating and the current was very strong so I fished the Clarksville Marina along with a few other boats; seemed no one wanted to head out into the main river. Water temp in the marina was 50 degrees. And the white bass were in there; I started out using a redeye shad but was missing a lot of hits so I switched to a Blue Fox inline spinner and I must have caught at least 40 in a couple of hours. The rest of the time, I was casting to the rip rap, looking for bass and I was fortunate enough to catch a decent one (on a 4" black Senko, texas rigged). Here's a pic of that bass and a few of the white bass - that was the average size white bass I was catching. Today's outing was the perfect Christmas present for me :)

[agelesssone]

WOW! Nice fish there. Glad you got a little Christmas present early.

I was out yesterday and the river was full of logs and debris. Had to watch where I was going so as not to hit any.

[Alphahawk]

Nice fish! I bet that was a blast getting into those Whites.

Regards

[nomad60]

agelessone,

Thanks, and yep, I'm one happy camper :). The river was still really nasty today; there were a few boats in the marina lagoon and no one even tried going out into the main river.

Alphahawk,

It sure was a blast catching those white bass; I guess they school and move a lot because there were times when they would nail that spinner as soon as it hit the water and I had a fish on almost every cast and then suddenly it would slow down just like that until I moved around and found them again.

[TroutFiend]

Nice catch man ! Wanted to go out today myself my little girl was begging me to take her. But they have got Center Hill Dam cranked up. Probably wear my little old town out.

[j19bill]

Sounds like a good time!

[browntrout]

Merry Xmas!! I figured today would be a good day with the cloud cover.

Roy.

[nomad60]

There was one guy fishing for sauger by bouncing some kind of jig off the bottom; he told me that last year, the day after Christmas people were catching their limit right out of the marina. I didn't see him catch anything yesterday though so the sauger must not be in there yet. I would have never thought to fish for sauger in there; learn something new every day!

[Reel Tune]

Congrats on getting out there and putting a bend in your pole. Merry Christmas.

Jeremy

[Travis C.]

Awesome way to go Nomad.

[jad2t]

Those are some nice sized white bass! You found them around the marina? During this time of year with it being so cold, what is the pattern for white bass? Do they gather up below the dams and in the tailwater? I want to try for them sometime this week either right below OHD or maybe a little way downstream but still in the moving current.

[agelesssone]

Jimmy, the river will be rolling below the dam with a 28,200 CFS flow. With the high winds and current, boat control would be tough. I don't do enough shore fishing to know the patterns for them, but he did say he was back in a bay (marina bay) so there would be calm water back in there and mostly were on the rocks.
They could be along the rocks on the Madison side of OH by the locks. Anybody else got any ideas?
I was on the river a couple of days before Christmas and the river was full of logs, limbs, and debris. Had to be very vigilant whilst driving the boat.

[nomad60]

Those are some nice sized white bass! You found them around the marina? During this time of year with it being so cold, what is the pattern for white bass? Do they gather up below the dams and in the tailwater? I want to try for them sometime this week either right below OHD or maybe a little way downstream but still in the moving current.

Jimmy,

I was fishing the big lagoon at the new marina in Clarksville (Liberty Park); my guess is that the strong current in the Cumberland was pushing the fish into the marina where there was calm water. As for patterns, I honestly have no clue as I'm still relatively new to river fishing and fishing in this area, period. The fish were moving around a lot, I started out catching them between the fountains they have in the water and the rip rap; then once the action died down I slow-trolled, fan casting until I started catching them again. Sometimes they were close to the rip rap, then 5 minutes later I'd catch them by casting towards the middle of the lagoon. On a side note, I really need to figure out the settings on my fish finder because throughout all of that, I never saw anything that even remotely resembled a fish on the graph.

[jad2t]

Jimmy, the river will be rolling below the dam with a 28,200 CFS flow. With the high winds and current, boat control would be tough. I don't do enough shore fishing to know the patterns for them, but he did say he was back in a bay (marina bay) so there would be calm water back in there and mostly were on the rocks.
They could be along the rocks on the Madison side of OH by the locks. Anybody else got any ideas?
I was on the river a couple of days before Christmas and the river was full of logs, limbs, and debris. Had to be very vigilant whilst driving the boat.

I bank fished right below OHD last week and the current was quite heavy, I caught several really big skipjack but didn't find any whites. I was going to go again tomorrow morning but my guess is the water will be the color of chocolate milk and full of debris so it's probably not my best bet. I'm going to follow yours and Nomads advice and hit the calmer water in the several marinas surrounding me while I'm at the future wifey's place and see if I can find them. I'm here until Jan 2nd so let's try again for a trip to GSP before then!

[Travis C.]

On a side note, I really need to figure out the settings on my fish finder because throughout all of that, I never saw anything that even remotely resembled a fish on the graph.

They could have been laying on the bottom in the "dead zone" of the fishfinder.

"DEAD ZONE - Dead Zone is the area within the transducers cone of sound that is blind to you. The wider the beam angle the greater the possible dead zone. The sonar will mark bottom as the nearest distance it sees. If you are fishing over a slope it may see the high side of the slope, at the edge of the cone, and mark that as bottom. The fish that are hanging on the bottom in the center of the cone will be invisible to you because they are actually within the bottom signal on your depth finder. A narrower beam angle will reduce this effect."

This may not be the best example but there's good info about it on the web. You can take a jig big enough to show up on your depthfinder and drop it all the way down by the transducer. Before it hits bottom on your graph it will disappear. How much further until you hit actual bottom is how big your blind spot is.

[agelesssone]

Jimmy, for fishing GSP, take your pick....Thursday, Friday both look good weatherwise. Better than going on Saturday cause it'll probably be full of boats on Saturday. We can hit it at daylight. Can't go before because of the logs in the river. Have to see what is coming at us.

[GoFish_Tony]

My son and I were at the GSP on Christmas day from about 11:30 - 1:30. Was 4 other boats in the channel all within sight of the plant. My fishfinder battery went dead on me so i can't tell you what the temperature was. We talked to a couple of the boats and they were struggling (as were we) to get fish in the boat. We saw a few Skip's get caught as well as a few (I assume White Bass.)

It's tough driving 9 hours to get here only to get skunked, but we are getting used to it. We never got a bite. Will try it again on Thursday morning. Will head over to the Cumberland Power plant next week sometime next week.

We were hoping to get some Skip Jack here at the GSP A big Catfish or Striper would have been nice too. Heck a Carp would have at least cleaned the skunk off the boat! LOL. My son was throwing store bought Sabiki rigs and I was throwing 1/8 jigs with 2" curly tails of varying colors. Also tried a Foley Spoon with no luck.

If any of you could offer us a tip or two I would be much obliged.

We will be in a 1860 Center Console G3. It's not hard to spot as it has a dozen rod holders mounted all around it. If you see us feel free to stop over and say hi.

T.

[Travis C.]

If any of you could offer us a tip or two I would be much obliged.

T.

If Whites are anywhere around its hard to beat an inline spinner like a Rooster Tail in white.

Also another trick is a marabou jig (I like white) suspended maybe 6"-8" under a float and pop it back to you. Mix some pauses in as well. This is really great if you can see them chasing bait then cast to the school.

For getting the skunk off a trout magnet or crappie magnet will catch about anything anywhere.

[GoFish_Tony]

Thanks Travis, we will give it a shot.

Didn't mean to hijack this thread. I will start a new post hopefully showing some FISH!! :-)

[nomad60]

They could have been laying on the bottom in the "dead zone" of the fishfinder.

"DEAD ZONE - Dead Zone is the area within the transducers cone of sound that is blind to you. The wider the beam angle the greater the possible dead zone. The sonar will mark bottom as the nearest distance it sees. If you are fishing over a slope it may see the high side of the slope, at the edge of the cone, and mark that as bottom. The fish that are hanging on the bottom in the center of the cone will be invisible to you because they are actually within the bottom signal on your depth finder. A narrower beam angle will reduce this effect."

This may not be the best example but there's good info about it on the web. You can take a jig big enough to show up on your depthfinder and drop it all the way down by the transducer. Before it hits bottom on your graph it will disappear. How much further until you hit actual bottom is how big your blind spot is.

Travis,

Thanks; you are a wealth of fishing information!

GoFish_Tony,

Good luck and let us know how you do!