Gone Nuclear

Wheeler Lake - Browns Ferry

Time: 4:30 PM - 9:40 PM
Air Temperature: 85 - 73 degrees during trip
Water Temperature:
Lake Level: 555.58 

Weather Conditions: Mostly sunny and clear. Winds SSE- 5-10 MPH.

After taking about a month off, I finally got back on the water today for some Memorial Day weekend catfish.  I had to replace the trailer boards today, so while I had the boat off the trailer and in the water, I headed over to the nuclear plant for an evening/night catfishing session.

I started tied up to one of the four metal corner posts and was casting slip egg sinkers on the bottom and also floating a couple of slip bobbers at adjustable depths too.  I was using a mix of chicken gizzards and cut skipjack.  I got a quick fish on the bobber and had a monster throw the hook and slime my line on a giant skipjack head, but the wind was tough and I moved over to the green side tower and tied up and repeated my same spread.  I picked up fish more quickly here.  I caught one more on the bobber rig and here gizzards seemed to be the best bet.  I was catching smaller fish on the gizzards, but they were more frequent.  

I used the tie-off method today mainly because of all the wind, waves, and recreational traffic.  I would have normally bumped bottom.  

I stayed well after dark, but the fish actually slowed down tremendously when the sun went down.  Still had a great trip and ended up with 8 or 9 cats.  I've missed this evening bite and need to do it more often.

Night Time Jug Lines

Location: Joe Wheeler State Park and 2nd Creek

Time: 5:00 PM - 2:00 AM
Air Temperature: 90 Degrees
Water Temperature: 85 Degrees

Lake Level: 

Weather Conditions: Slight to Moderate winds from the south.

Fished with Doug and Douglas Ainsworth tonight. I got there early to try to catch live bluegill to use to target flatheads. I fished blown over tops with worms and a bobber and managed to catch 14 with Doug’s wife, Shirley.

Douglas dropped 16 jugs at dark along the south shore of Wheeler with fresh cut shad. I dropped 6 along the north west bend then we headed to 2nd creek to drop the rest. We went north of the boat landing at 2nd Creek and dropped 8 more jugs in 8-12 feet of water as the creek narrowed just before the bend. All of these had live bluegill on the bottom hook and cut shad on the top. We dropped 6 more off the rocky point out from the boat landing and baited these the same way and returned to Wheeler.

After a couple hours, we checked my first 6 in wheeler and found a 4 ft long gar, but no cats. We ran back to 2nd Creek and ran the group of 8. We caught one nice blue and found one jug had run away from the others. When we pulled it, it had been tangled over and over around a sunken tree. We managed to pull the entire tree up and untangle it. I can only imagine a flathead did this. We ran the other group of six and caught one more small cat. We also found one more jug had a broken line.

We headed back to Wheeler and pulled Douglas’s jugs. We caught one more small cat. We found 15 of the sixteen pretty easily. We were watching the last one in the spotlight as it was pulled under and it never came back up. It had to have been a big fish. We searched for a good while but never found it.

Overall, it was a blast and a good learning experience for nighttime jug fishing. I think I would repeat the bluegill tactic next time, but concentrate a little more around the creeks and fallen structure. Will definitely do it again soon!

ThunderCats. Lost Jugs.

Location: Browns Ferry - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Air Temperature: ?? Degrees
Water Temperature: 83-85 Degrees
Lake Level: 556.03' - A bit high
Weather Conditions: Calm to choppy, winds from the South.

Decided to night fish tonight.  I got up this morning and headed down to Wheeler Dam to try to catch some bait.  I was very happy to find the threadfin shad running hard.  I threw a casting net one time and literally caught so many that I had difficulty lifting the net out of the water.  I brought a 2.5-3 gallon bucket and filled it overrunning with shad in a single throw.  I headed back home and divided the shad into Ziploc bags.  I filled each bag with 15 shad and had a total of 18 bags.  I froze these for future trips.  Very successful bait trip!!

I launched at the house at around 7 PM.  I used shad as cut bait from the morning trip to the dam.  I launched 12 jugs on the south shore on the Decatur side just off the island outside of Mallard Creek in about 12-14 foot of water.  I had retied 6 of the jugs with monofilament leaders and left 6 with nylon leaders as a trial.

I headed back over to the nuclear plant and began fishing my normal spot alongside the boils.  I was bumping bottom with a new rig that I was experimenting with.  I've heard a lot of positive feedback from the Demon Dragon product line.  This is basically an inline float to keep your bait suspended in the strike zone and keep it from falling to the bottom or hanging straight down.  I had an idea to rig my bottom bouncing rigs up with small 3/4 size floats inline on each of my 2 leaders.  These really small slip floats actually worked very good to offset the weight of the hook and bait and kept the cut bait suspended nicely.  I dropped the down and bumped bottom like normal.

Immediately, I was on the fish.  The depth finder visibly had fish stacked up along the drop off of the pipeline.  This was nice to see.  I started getting strong hits immediately and began catching fish.  I stayed in this area and continued to fish my new rig for about an hour or hour and a half with very good luck.  Ended up catching 10 in this time on rod and reel.  The last one I caught was a very nice blue weighing around 25 lbs.  

I would have kept fishing, but there had been pop-up storms all day.  A storm cell came out of nowhere and the wind picked up and cloud to cloud lightening began filling the skies over both Decatur and Athens.  I grew pretty nervous and decided I better play it safe and pack it up.  I headed over to where I dropped off the jugs.  It was dark by this time and I made several passes but could not locate the jugs in the dark with the choppy water.  My spotlight also just wasn't as powerful as I remember.  After a few attempts, I thought it was best to cut my losses and head home.  I will try to find the jugs tomorrow morning.

Overall, other than abandoning the jugs for the night, it was a very successful trip.  I wish I could have stayed longer, but the storms just didn't cooperate.  

Location: Lake Chickamauga, Harrison Bay - Chattanooga - Tennessee

Time: Night Fishing
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Caught around 20 crappie tonight. Kept 6 and one catfish. Floating minnows under a bobber off the dock. Good night!!

Location: Lake Chickamauga - Chattanooga - Tennessee

Time: Night Fishing
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Fished off the dock at Jessica's parent's house with Sean. We fished minnows under a bobber. Caught at least 5 keeper crappie. Old photos suggest we may have caught as many as 20, but most were small.