"TNCBA Dock Talk - South Holston"

*Each month, before we fish our tournament, I will be writing a "Dock Talk" article to provide my opinions and view points on the upcoming tournanent.*

Dock Talk: an anglers attempt to play up or play down his or her day on the water. Often used to play mind games with other competing anglers.

     So should we lend our ears to the local dock talk? If we all had the ability to spend countless hours on the water as we prepare for our upcoming tournament, I would advise you to trust your abilities and get as far away from the local dock talk as humanly possible. Unfortunately we don't have that luxury. Some of us are able to get out on the water the weekend before and put together a pattern that we hope doesn't get blown to bits by coming cold front or torrential downpours that muddy our water. Some of us wont even get the chance to wet a line before we launch at 7:30am Saturday. So with those being the facts, sometimes dock talk is all we weekend anglers have to go by. 

     Now lets decipher some of the dock talk that is going around and I will let you in on my game plan for this Saturday on South Holston.

     I feel pretty sure that 8 out of 10 people that you talk to right now are going to be saying, "Damiki, Damiki, Damiki," but lets think about that statistic. If we were to put 100 boats on the water, that means there are going to be 80 people out there trying to Damiki. I promise you there are not 80 good Damiki spots on that lake.

     With that said, I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I am not going to try and hit a Damiki hole or two early Saturday morning. But, if your are not familiar with the Damiki technique, I would forgo that bite and head for the bank. During the past two days that I have been on the water, there are very few people that are beating the bank. Those fish on the bank have seen very little pressure while the fish out deep have been bombarded.

     My game plan for Saturday begins with 3 primary setups; Damiki ; Tightline Fly ; and SilverBuddy. I am going to spend 1-2 hours focusing on active Damiki fish and then I will head to 4 bluffs and channel swings where I have found fish. After the first two hours I will begin to rotate between my bluffs, swings, and Damiki holes in 30 minute increments. Once 1 pm arrives, I will begin to make added adjustments and location changes throughout the end of the day.

*Extra Notes:

-When you find fish, focus on that small area. Fish often group up during the Winter.

-Pick up some Reel Magic for Saturday. A few sprays on each rod guide will reduce icing during those cold morning temperatures.

-Don't get caught up in what you see everyone else doing around you. Stay focused and keep fishing.

SoHo Fishing Reports

Friday 2.19.16 - Report from Ryan Pope

River has more color and is a few degrees colder on Thursday temp was 43 in River. Not much happening up that direction.

Bite seems to be best mid lake to lower end. Main channel all the way to the last points in the backs of the creeks and pockets seems to be producing some smallmouth. An occasional largemouth is mixed in with them. Morning bite is best with fish pushed up in feeding schools. Once the sun gets out they scatter for the most part and or suspend. water temps are coming back up from Thursdays temps. 46 degrees was highest for me. Winter bite is definitely in full swing with the Damiki bite as king. 30-50 feet deep. Jerkbait bite seems to be slower now that the water temp has come down. Rig has not turned on yet. Only had one rig bite at 30 feet deep. Knocked slack in it but didn't eat it.    

Friday 2.19.16 - Report from Dison's

Water Temp - 44 degrees and warming to 48 degrees

Water Clarity - Upper End: 0-3 ft / Lower End : 7 ft +

Conditions - Mostly Sunny Skies / 30 degrees warming to 58 degrees / Wind - increasing throughout the day

Notes:  We started our morning of around Ob Know fishing main lake points and channel swings without any bites. Then moved towards the middle of the lake where we found a couple good schools of Damiki fish, but could not get any to commit. Damiki bite is short lived early in the mornings. Then hit a few mid lake channel swings and caught three. Moved down to the spillway area around noon and graphed fish suspending in about 5-15 ft, but no takers on that end of the lake. Finally, we moved up into Virginia, but the water was more stained and about five degrees colder than the rest of the lake. Bites on Thursday came on a SilverBuddy, Tightline Fly, and Smoke Grub.

Saturday 2.20.16 - Report from Dison's

Water Temp - 45 degrees and warming to 46 degrees

Water Clarity -  Middle: 7 ft + / Lower End : 7 ft +

Conditions - Overcast/ 45 degrees warming to 58 degrees / Wind - steady throughout the day

Notes:  On Friday we focused mainly on our productive areas from Thursday. We worked channel swings and bluffs on the middle and lower end of the lake. With overcast skies the water temperatures never really changed. Damiki fish were still finicky as the morning wore on, but we did manage to catch two. From that point on we focused our attention on our other two most productive baits, the tightline fly and SilverBuddy. We managed to catch three more throughout the rest of the day off of bluffs and channel swings.

*Over the course of two days we had 8 fish with 6 of them being keepers.

Tackle Breakdown:

Damiki - 2

Tightline - 4

SilverBuddy - 2

February 8th Meeting and Watson's Open House

This Monday, February 8th, the TNCBA will be hosting their monthly meeting and recognizing the top anglers from 2015. Due the snowpocalypse that hit a couple of weeks ago and scheduling conflicts that followed, the TNCBA has decided to handout awards and certificates at our February meeting.

Please join us this Monday at 7:00pm, at the Sullivan County Courthouse. We will be discussing our fast approaching, first tournament of the year, collecting dues/entry fees, and sharing in fellowship. Also remember to visit the Watson's Open House this Thursday-Saturday.

TNCBA #1 : South Holston Survey

New look for HowTo's in 2016

For the year 2016 we are going to do some new things with our HowTo's. We will still have the HowTo's at each one of our monthly meetings, but we are also going to include "On the Water - HowTo's" and "TNCBA - Day on the Lake" to help share information and techniques. Here is our first video on the Alabama Rig. These videos can also be found in our tips and techniques section of the TNCBA site.

A basic informational video on the Alabama Rig technique.


Douglas Lake Fishing Report

Date Fished:  Thursday 10.15.15

Water Temp: 70 degrees (Mid-Lake)

                      68 degrees (Up-Lake)

Water Clarity: 3 - 5 '

Wind: W at 5 mph

Conditions: The day started off with air temperatures in the low 40's and warmed into the mid 70's. There was a little fog, but nothing major until you headed up the lake. There was a major high pressure system over us and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky all day long.

Notes:

We found that the majority of the bait schools are still on the main lake or mouths of pockets and creeks. We threw absolutely everything under the sun at them and only came away with two drum and a sauger for the day. The Oakley Big Big Bass and the Fishers of Men tournaments had solid weights brought to the scales, but they had cloudy/rainy weather. We need to have some nasty weather to turn on the bite. Right now it looks as if we will have overcast skies and warm temperatures.

Good Luck this Saturday!