TnRiver46

Glad you made it back! Had a couple close calls on Norris today myself. From sunrise until 8:30 I was afraid to start the motor, just fished on the troller. Started the gas motor at 8:30 and no pee coming out. Was worried for 5 minutes before I realized these new fangled (10 yr old) 4 strokes don't start the water pump until they need cooled off. Second was after taking the boat out, I lowered the motor down to drain all the water so it wouldn't freeze. Then It wouldn't trim back up!!! Didn't know how I would trailer the boat home with the motor down. Then all of a sudden it trimmed up. Glad I didn't have to leave my boat at the remote lake where hoodlums pull into the parking lot constantly

Congrats!!!

Started the day at 21 degrees, I thought the low was 31........ anyhow we got 8-9 smallmouth and a big Striper broke my line! Fishing 2.5 inch gulp minnows on 1/8 oz jig heads. And one fish hit a tube. Water temp was 55

Only one bite but I tried to cook it myself. I'm sure someone knows how to make them palatable but I don't. Just the color of the meat was gross

I suppose I could roll with that classification. I personally classify them as way less fun and tasty than game fish. I would like to see a study conducted with two similar watersheds, one with common carp and one without.

Time to switch to mono!!! Cool story

Ok all this jazz sounds really fun and I want to do it

Whoa!!! Nice big cat

Every jig all of a sudden is called a finesse jig

I'll go with Ott Defoe since he is from my neck of the woods

You will lose a lot so I would go with a cheap (er) one. H20 express makes good ones for $3

Commercial fishermen that sell fish from local lakes target carp Buffalo and catfish. Most states it is illegal to net and sell gamefish unless salmon are involved

Common carp aren't native fish, they are from Europe and Asia. The native suckers to America are quillbacks, highfin carpsucker, river carpsucker, northern hog sucker, American redhorse, silver redhorse, buffalo, the list goes on and on. Common carp are an exotic invasive species in North America. The certainly don't slaughter baby bass but they do sequester a lot of resources at the producer level of the food chain that I'm sure has effects all the way up

Hahahha! There are some stripers where i catch them and they legalized gamefish for bait years ago but I have never tried it. I have chunked some swimbaits though, nabs a decent brown trout every now and then. Smoked those trout last night mmmmmm, used apple branches from the girlfriends family orchard

heres an insightful video on the subject

There are several tournaments on every lake anywhere near me every weekend all year long and quite a few on weekday evenings also. It's impossible to avoid them all. I used to float rivers in canoes to avoid tournament (anglers) but now they have jet boat river tournaments. I treat everybody the same and don't move in on anyone's spot. I wouldn't dream of moving in and asking someone if I could fish near them, that just sounds ridiculous even typing it. Around here if there is $350 on the line people have the green light to fish right next to your boat and be as rude as possible. Or they will just zoom by your canoe at 40 mph in 1 ft of water

Mmmmmm good looking river groceries

My girlfriend is making smoked trout dip for her dad's Christmas gift, thus I was charged with the task of collecting trout

I woke up to a light dusting and figured what a great day to go smallmouth fishing. Didn't set the world on fire but caught some fish, water temp was around 55-56, all of our fish but one were caught trolling crank baits about 2 1/2 mph

Good luck!!!

Reports of some snow in downtown but I'm in west knoxville right now and it's still dry. Most accumulation is south of us, go figure

For fast current and water under 40 degrees just try again and hope for the best. If you are fishing still water you have much better odds. Suspending jerkbait with extra long pauses and then some even longer is good for cold water. Leave it sitting still on a slack line and pay attention, they will hit it surprisingly hard. Small hair jigs and tiny tube jigs work good for smallmouth

I was about to buy a new phone!! Glad it wasn't just me

Food is just fishing fuel!!!

The game wardens here are only supposed to work 37.5 hrs a week. I graduated college with 7 of them