Great day at Nickajack.
 

I knew the wind was going to blow hard today and I was not going fishing. I kept moaning about the wind and how I don’t like fishing in the wind. My wife knows I get a little sour acting when I don’t fish. As she left for work she says “Go fishing”....so I went. The wind was a steady 15 MPH with gusts sometimes 18-20 below dam at Nickajack. The white bass were in there as thick as thieves....and so were crappie. I found several schools of white bass on the bottom and the crappie were hanging out with them in the upper part of the water column. I used a 1/8 ounce Fin Spin checking out the crappie.....wanted to keep it off the bottom because if you didn’t the white bass were all over it. The pink Fin Spin was dressed with a MidnightBlue Slab Curly. I targeted the sonar image with crappie in it 18 times today and caught 18 fish. The rest of the time I was using a 1/4 ounce pink Fin Spin...dressed with a MidnightBlue Slab Curly....wanting to keep it down deep for the white bass. The rod was a Major Craft Truzer Ajing 6’ 5” hard model...one of only two UL rods I have that can handle a 1/4 ounce bait. The reel was a Daiwa Certate 2004CH spooled with 2# test SOS line. I caught over 150 white bass today...all in the 12-13 inch range.....very fat fish and a lot of fun on the UL rod. Those whites were “Diggin” hard today. Fished from 8:30 this morning and pulled off the fish at 3:00 p.m. I can’t emphasize enough how important a part electronics played a part in my success today....Helix 10 Mega si G2N. Yes I have caught tons of fish without using sonar but it sure makes it a lot easier. Man oh man “Life is good”!


Regards

Sonar pics.
 

Sonar images.

Nice job! Those white bass sure are fat.

Way to go Alpha. I know you had a blast!

Thanks...yeah they’re pretty fat. Certainly not JPP or Pickwick white bass but lot of fun on the UL. This is my first spring to fish for whites below Nickajack and I was told a multitude of sizes to expect from the locals down there. So far the gentleman who emphasized they were in the 12-13 inch range is the winner....LOL. Although several years back Jaycee from the forum put me on some further down stream that were 14-15 inch females.

Regards


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[As she left for WORK she said"go fishing".............. Man oh man “Life is good”!

Man Oh man That is about as good as it gets!
Regards[/QUOTE]

Man that sounds like a great day! Those white bass sure put up a good fight on lite tackle.It amazes me that you caught 150 White Bass and they all were about the same size you would think a few bigger ones would be in the mix when catching so many.Do they school only in same basic size schools? Do you think a bigger size will move in a bit later in the spawning run? Last week I caught a few all 14" at Clarksville marina and couple days ago caught 3ea that were 10"-11" fish.Back when I was a kid we would catch Whites running upriver to spawn and they were all 1&3/4 to 2&1/4 lb fish;hoping to get into some that size this year.

I’ve always found white bass to run in same size schools. Some bodies of water produce bigger fish than others. I’ve never understood the white bass sizing. There will be certain years at Pickwick that the big girls show up....17-18 inches long...then the next year you get 12-14 inch fish. If they ever get the spill gates closed at Pickwick I will make a couple of trips to see what the whites are like there this year. I am hopeing bigger fish will move in at Nickajack. All those I am catching could be the smaller males that have moved in first. According to conventional wisdom that could be the case as water temps are not yet high enough for big females to show up.


Regards


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Nice catching!

A really good day

Maybe when I get back in town I can get into some kind of fish