Tennessee River Provides Excellent Fishing

For anglers in the Charlotte area, a four hour drive to Lenoir City Tennessee will present some of the best fishing that can be experienced in this part of the country. The creation of several dams and lakes that meet in this area to form the greater Tennessee River offer a wide variety of different fishing conditions from the traditional crappie fishing to nearly all other freshwater species. Big stripers caught in the fast waters below the dams is exciting and productive especially when large amounts of water are being pushed through the dams. I recently spent two days fishing with an experienced guide Bo Rice who knows these waters like the back of his hand. He will put you on fish when no one else can. My fishing partner Howie Anger of Nashville and I caught ten stripers the first morning, all of significant size.Fifteen and twenty pounders were not uncommon as shown below.

We took a break for lunch and did some quiet catfishing and both Howie and I caught our personal best catfish, a 32 pound blue cat for Howie and a 51 pound flathead for me.

The second day we got a late start due to thunder storms but we still had a record day. We caught numerous black drum and 20 huge stripers like the 35 pound fish shown below.

With tired arms and full coolers, we headed home before 2 pm that day, leaving behind some great fishing.

It's not all about Lake Norman.

South Carolina red fish.

Get ready for the cold weather fishing on the lake

The water temperature on Lake Norman is holding around 57 degrees and that's a great temperature for all species in the lake. Unfortunately that will not continue forever. Within a week or so the water temperature will drop into the low 50's and possibly high 40's and at that time the bait fish will seek warmer water. The bait will leave the coves and creeks and go into 40 to 50 feet of water where a degree or two will be more comfortable for them. As the bait schools go, so go the bass and other predators.
You will probably see fish holding around the 20 to 30 foot level until mid January or early February and then they will go slightly deeper to around 30 to 40 feet.

You can fish using nearly the same trolling techniques that you would use in shallow water except that you must use more weight to get that bait down to where the fish are. Live bait is always best in cold water but move the bait very slooowly.

Hybrids are finding their way south in the lake and they like live bait, fish them just as you would fish bass.

Don't forget to pick up your free copy of The Angler Magazine at sporting goods stores. My article this month is about red fishing in South Carolina.

Sometimes It's Not About Fishing

After waiting 20 years I finally wrote the book, revealing all of the back room facts about the hostile takeover of Grumman by Northrop. I was in a unique position during all of the events leading up to and including this hostile takeover, to document the real information that was never before revealed. The book is titled :The Last Chapter" and I wrote it because I wanted to close the book properly on this great company.

 The book discusses the many political issues related to maintaining a defense company during difficult budgetary times and also points out the difficulty of operating a large defense company from a state that has no real political clout. Anyone that worked for Grumman or was even remotely associated with the Long Island New York area will be interested in reading this book. The book can be reviewed and purchased at my new web site www.booksbyjake.com

Hatteras Fishing is Great

Once again this Fall the Mooresville fishing group including Howie Anger of Nashville who defected the area last year, traveled to Hatteras for our semi annual fishing trips. We did two days with Captain Buddy on the Hatteras Fever II. First day produced three tune, three wahoo and about 15 mahi mahi. The second day was a mahi day with 20 caught in a single bail. Weather was great and the fish generally cooperated. On the third day we tried to catch some red fish in the sound but they were nowhere to be found, only one flounder and one speckled trout.

Bass Still Not Nesting

Despite the rapid rise in the water temperature, I have seen no indication that the bass are ready to spawn. The females are not very fat with eggs and the males are showing no signs of preparing the nests. I have found that the bass are still in 15 to 20 feet of water and I am finding them off the deep ends of the docks. catching good size fish with split crank bait lures. Not finding many large schools of Shad inside coves and channels. bass are still hitting trolled shad n 20 feet of water. I believe that the extra cold winter has stretched out the desire to spawn and the fish are holding off thinking that there will be another cold spell.