Old Hickory yesterday morning & USA Tourn

[Scott715]

I went yesterday morning (615am) and the weather was perfect. Steam rising from the lake and it was calm as glass. I knew the USA Bassin tourney was kicking off at Flippers so I stayed on the lower end, which I'm more comfortable with anyway. I only caught two largemouth and a crappie the 2.5 hours I was on the water. Both were caught on a topwater Rapala Skitterpop and the crappie was on a 4 - 8 ft diver. I was told the tourney winner had 18 lbs, but several had left early, so I'm assuming fishing was tougher than most expected. Water temp was 73 degrees. I'm hoping for those bass to get shallow and get hungry soon. Anyone with more updates please post.

[Buccaneer]

I was out Saturday AM early also and had about the same luck as you. I never could figure out a pattern and fished from shallow to deep, topwater, cranks, worms, jig, shakey heads, basically I threw the whole tackle box at them. When I launched at 5:30 I had visions of a massive topwater bite but it never materialized. What surprised me was that I found no concentrated shad unlike my last time out before the rains and cooler weather. I think the 15 degree water temp drop in such a short time had them all locked up.

[butts0907]

Not to sound like a broken record, but I went out yesterday afternoon for a few hours and had about the same luck. Because of a late start, I didn't get to hit the spots I wanted to, so the pleasure boaters pretty much dictated where I fished. I stayed in Station Camp and fished all the grass I could find that was far enough removed from the wake boarders to prevent me from getting sea sick. Caught a nice 2 lber on my 4th cast, so I thought I was in for a good afternoon, but not much else after that. I did find a cove where the bait fish were plentiful (several would jump everytime the lure hit the water) and there were a few "active" bass smashing the surface. But like you, I threw everything I could find at them but couldn't find what they wanted. There simply may have been too many bait fish for anything I had to appeal to them. Nonetheless, all this happened in +/- 3 ft. of water and the first one I caught was probably no deeper than 4 ft. I guess the water temp could have thrown them off. I fished about 10 days ago and the water temp was still in the mid to upper 80's.

If anyone had any better luck, please let us know.

-Paul

[Reel Tune]

Didn't fish Old Hickory, but put about 17hrs on the water this past weekend, and I'm ashamed to say I went fishing. I thought it was going to be great I invisioned lots of big fish, but caught just a few small fish. I'm glad it just wasn't me.