TnRiver46

Pouring rain too

They are spilling water upstream here in lenoir city now with it predicted to increase, it’s about to be pretty wild down your way Bob

Haha! Thanks buddy! I need to get you a raccoon hat

I do most everything wrong

The bags get even bigger the colder it gets!

Watauga tournaments are tough, there’s some ole boys always seem to be bringing in 20+ lbs. Its a sleeper

Amen brother, good ole gasoline keeps em clean if you run a lot of it thru em

Fun fact: Higgins played high school ball in oak ridge, not far from our work office

Bengals have beaten the chiefs 3 times in the calendar year 2022……. that is all

Nice!!!

Don’t know about perry but I can bust one myth in your post. Smallmouth can and do most certainly feed on vibration. Sure they sight feed in clear Great Lakes but they also exist in the always flooding rivers of Appalachia, which I’m sure you are familiar with. They don’t just sit there and starve when the water turns milky. And it doesn’t have to be a loud vibration either purple worm on a Texas rig the smallmouth is still a bass and will eat a jig in the dead of night 35 feet underwater. I would also imagine that’s not a sight feeding in a reservoir, I catch a whole lot of them in brush piles, it doesn’t have to be rocks. I remember Steve Kennedy catching a 5 lb smallie flipping a jig into a laydown in the 2021 elite event on fort loudon. As far as movement in reservoirs (I’m assuming that’s what’s in WV) I can offer only a very general overview. Late winter early spring when you’re getting a lot of warmish rain (days pushing 50 degree air) they will move surprisingly shallow and gobble up crankbaits and other moving baits. They of course will stay somewhat shallow (under 15’) during the spawn then move out to the main river channel and follow shad during summer. They can still be caught shallow in creeks and cuts early and late in day, but seem to go deep or find swift current during midday in summer. During fall they blitz shad like crazy all over, can be tough fishing but can hit motherlode with rattle trap. I’m winter I usually get them offshore on drop offs with timber stacked on it. Or in clearer highland reservoirs they just roam around with stripers and eat shad balls all winter. One ace in the hole year round is a vertical cliff wall, smallies like those no matter what.

I’ve never seen any of his writings except a few tidbits on here , I could definitely use some advice. My deep smallmouth spots have been a bust the last two weekends, it’s usually a guarantee anytime in December

Next time ya go, cheat a little bit and get trout minnows from the Hampton trout farm. It’s legal live bait and magic

Schooling bass do that to people somewhat regularly, I’ve had many many people say they saw 3-4 lb LM busting shad on top all day, flying thru the air, and they couldn’t catch them no matter what they tried. I usually hear these tales from watts bar lake for whatever reason. And believe it or not I haven’t had carp, although my father in law said he used to buy carp sandwiches for less than a dollar

The eyes are probably the best part when it comes to carp hahaha not speaking from personal experience, I would have to be hard up

You need a mini truck!!!

I would just fish normally , then you can blame the cold front if it goes poorly. This is a time honored practice

Beats starvation every time!

Eagle has to eat too. Duck is delicious

That’s cuz you can’t see me over them tall mtns………. I throw other things for no reason, dead ringer is my favorite and always does better than any other lure. Not much a secret tho, they been on the market near 50 years and I post pics of them on here all the time

Might be a tough ride home with no windshield. I’ve had gravel chip my windshield many times, don’t wanna know how that feels on your forehead at 55 mph. I keep a spare key……

I read on the internet they are 95 percent accurate……… great outing as always, I don’t catch 30 largemouth in a year and here you are doing in with ice on the car

Nice. The big river is still calm up this way, although they said we are 2 inches over normal rainfall amounts. They store most of the flood water in Douglas Cherokee and Norris upstream of me

^ bingo!!!! ive fished non stop for my whole life and don’t ever recall a bite pattern