Sauger Claus camento visit today

[skillet]

Ok, this makes much more sense now. You're fishing a wide space that makes 30k flow much slower and say below old hick dam. Am I right on that?? We primarily fish the Cumberland below old hickory dam which is narrow and makes 30k really hard to handle in my opinion. But I'm open to try it with someone like yourself that knows how to handle that kind of flow and water. .

I'd like to meet up and fish with ya one day, and learn from ya. And I'll extend the invitation on my end as well. I've done some vertical jigging, not a complete newb. Lol I love fishing new areas. In your neck of the woods on old hickory would most definitely be a change. Kind of like fishing a new lake. We will most definitely have to set up a trip. I appreciate the invite

Originally Posted by TNBronzeback

Your info is for Old Hickory dam and the flow coming out of it....ive been fishing above the dam, way way above the dam, which would make my flow from cordell hull dam which was pushing out 18-19k depending on the exact hour. I get my flow charts from the app. Now thats not to say they dont adjust that over the course of the day.
Its safe fishing below those 2 dams at 30k. You just need to increase your leadhead size. Some places below cordell hull dam ive had to use close to 2oz of lead to stay vertical where i was fishing.
Im in no way calling myself an expert jigger, but over years of fishiing the Detroit and St. Clair rivers in michigan, you develop the skillset to adjust to any situation. Just like any other technique to fishing really. Focus on one method and you really fine tune your skills to better put yourself in a position to hook up with more fish.
If your seriously interested in learning how to vertical the river i will gladly take ya. Ya just gotta have the right equipment for it so its enjoyable, cause it can be taxing on your arm....non-stop up and down all day long, fishing the same hole for an extended amount of time to be sure youve exhausted every bite you can scrape out of it, then ya reel up, motor on and do it all over again. Lol.
Its really not THAT dull, i change it up when i fish directly below a dam.
The big key about sauger that alot of people dont take into consideration, is that they rarely are in an "aggressive" feeding mode where they just crush everything in site. You have to aggitate them enough to where they have to hit, they cant stand it.
Example, i fished yesterday, another boat was there too....they said they were there for a little while already and only got 1 short fish.....i boated a keeper within 5 minutes of fishing, they took off and i got another keeper and several shorts fishing in the same spots they just left from. Again, im not saying im some fish wisperer or something, but i can say with confidence, not cockiness that im damn good at my chosen technique.
But, even i have my goose egg days where i can boat a fish.....lol.

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by skillet

Ok, this makes much more sense now. You're fishing a wide space that makes 30k flow much slower and say below old hick dam. Am I right on that?? We primarily fish the Cumberland below old hickory dam which is narrow and makes 30k really hard to handle in my opinion. But I'm open to try it with someone like yourself that knows how to handle that kind of flow and water. .

I'd like to meet up and fish with ya one day, and learn from ya. And I'll extend the invitation on my end as well. I've done some vertical jigging, not a complete newb. Lol I love fishing new areas. In your neck of the woods on old hickory would most definitely be a change. Kind of like fishing a new lake. We will most definitely have to set up a trip. I appreciate the invite

You are correct. I fish Pickwick a lot with an output of 80-90 thousand CFS with no problems at all. That is the generator output. If the gates are open the output can be from 100 to 200 thousand CFS...and with the gates open you can't fish it....Pickwick is very wide so 80 thousand CFS is not a problem.


Regards

[jaystaler88]

When do you all reckon we can start seeing the white bass? I'll be in Cheatham and below the Cheatham Dam a few miles. I understand we need some cold weather...thoughts?

[TNBronzeback]

Originally Posted by jaystaler88

When do you all reckon we can start seeing the white bass? I'll be in Cheatham and below the Cheatham Dam a few miles. I understand we need some cold weather...thoughts?

with this warm winter thus far, its gonna be a little while with some colder temps to bring them back to their normal patterns for this time of year.
ive usually start getting into them below old hickory by late february/early march. ive ran into so small scattered schools sauger fishing, but no big schools of them.
Maybe a stupid question, but all this water dumping into the river from the rain, is it even "cold" rain water to help drop the temps or was it just tepid rain water?
we hope for warm spring rains to warm up the lakes, i can hope for cold winter rains to drop the temps! LOL
Even the extended forecast doesnt look promising for cold weather.

[skillet]

I can tell you for a fact,as of Saturday, old hickory water temps have been the same for almost the whole month of December which is 56-59* throughout the day. It's bad that we are calling and wishing for cold weather and water. Lol I have just kept steady on a fall pattern and it's paid pretty well for crappie and bass.