Blue Raider Bob

Prayers for you and your wife. Hope it's nothing serious. It's always scary just the same.

Kent gave me a tip on the weatherman......if he says winds will be 5-10 MPH, add those together for the TRUTH!

Alex, Kent actually has two DD's from Pickwick to his credit! I think the lake record is 12 something. No doubt he knows the lake, and was more than willing to show me his honey holes. After watching me fish, I'm sure he knew his honey holes were in no danger!

No we fished above the dam on the main lake. We will go below the dam this fall.

Absolutely! Love those dark, rainy, foggy kind of days!

Shout out to my gracious host who took me fishing on beautiful Pickwick lake yesterday! Pickwick is the 2nd to last of the TVA chain of lakes impounding the Tennessee River. Pickwick is known for it's DD Largemouths as well as terrific Smallmouth fishing. It is also a very scenic lake with deep, clear water and numerous islands, coves, creeks, and bluffs. Well, the trip started as expected with Roadwarrior taking the early lead. Kent kept the lead all day until a late rally by Blue Raider Bob tied the score and we finished the day even. Only casualty was the trolling motor tightening knob which the guest broke. In spite of that, BRB was invited for a second trip in the fall. Not only that, but lunch was provided as well in the form of a huge pastrami and cheese sandwich that Dagwood would have been proud of! This resulted in my having to take a nap standing up while I fished, and get a to-go box for my usual rack of ribs on the way home. So grateful to have made such great BR friends over the past couple of years! Roadwarrior is fishing Pickwick again today so I am looking forward to the results! Thanks again Roadwarrior!

Prettiest fish that swims, I say! God ran out of colors after creating the Longear. The Bluegills got the leavings.

I'm never posting again!

Glad your winning the war on cancer! Just keep moving as Dick Van Dyke would say. Should it rear its head again, let us know. The power of chain prayer is unbelievable! I know this from personal experience. Beautiful bass!

Second this opinion. Percy Priest is less than 30 Min. away, but I drive lots farther to fish safer places. Priest is a madhouse of high traffic mixed with drunken boaters. I don't think any amount of visibility will keep kayakers safe there. So sad someone ran over this poor girl.

Katie that's not just a "Maine" thing. Guys are just like that. I ran glasspack mufflers on my old pick up trucks way back in the day. Wanted to have the loudest exhaust. Had to buy the loudest truck stereo so I could hear over my exhaust! Guys are annoying worldwide! Raising my kids was the same way. My daughters wanted to go outside and pick flowers. My son wanted to smash something!

I have a book by Bobby Gentry that I have studied front to back, and over and over. It didn't help. I went there on a May weekend a few years ago and the boat traffic was the worst I have ever seen. I deliberately chose mid-week this time to avoid, but the lake was still crowded. The wake boats with the mega-volume music (so called) were unbearable, not to mention the wakes themselves. The only way to avoid was go deeper into the creeks and pockets, but that took me away from SM habitat. I did find a Rock Bass on a crankbait by a laydown and proceeded to catch a dozen on a jig. My next trip will be in late Feb. or early March. I'm just a grouchy old dude who wants the lake to myself. Besides, it's a 2-1/2 hour drive for me. Five hours driving in a day is a bit over the top. Thanks Katie but don't be sad. I did get to go fishin'! And I did get to fish again with my childhood fishin' buddy. We grew up on the Cypress and Willow swamp water, so the clear Dale Hollow water is like trying to understand a foreign language. I've only had three five or better LM in my life and have yet to net a 5lb. Smallie. I did get a 6.1 Channel Cat last weekend. It ate my Zman TicklerZ and now lives in my pond! I don't get 'em like you, Alex, and the rest of the gang! I'm going back to river fishin'. That way I know I'll bend a pole!

4th Annual trip to DH with high hopes and lots of energy. Tried everything from steep dropoff bluffs to inside of flooded hollows. Tried points, laydowns, everything. Fished eight hours. Tried Ned rigs, T-rigged worms, curly tails, crank baits, ect. Caught about a dozen youngins but nothing over a pound. Once again an afternoon at Dale Hollow has brought me back down to earth and hammered home the realization that I have so much to learn. Anybody out there having success at DH?

I'm laughing so hard my eyes are leaking!

My bad, I called it a prop hub. It's actually the rubber liner that secures the splined shaft to the prop frame. It's toast. My last two trips cost some serious money. Whopper Plopper, Rapala Shad Rap, propeller, trailer light, several ned rigs. Durn!

Water here is still in the sixties. I will wait until after Memorial day.

Your Buddy owes you! You sacrificed fishing time for him. That's a gift he can never repay. Are you asking me what is the lead time for my repair, or his? Mine is easy. I'm overnighting a new prop so I can fish Wednesday. Its a five minute fix. His would be difficult to tell. I would bring it into my shop and do a temp repair until my parts came in, but then I'm pretty good at fixing things.

Went to Center Hill in eastern middle Tennessee yesterday. Beautiful lake but get crowded on weekends. Should have know better but Dwight and A-Jay keep posting mega-smallie pictures that ruin my decision making. Water was high and up in the trees. Fished in the coves and creeks for hours tossing some of everything before I finally got a bite, only to see this huge, beautiful Smallie go airborne and gone! Only caught one little dink the rest of the day when I noticed that not only did I not need my sunglasses anymore, but it was getting downright dark! The wind came up and the thunder started. Well I cranked the trusty Merc and headed for the dock. A couple hundreds yards out of the creek I hit a log and spun my prop hub. At this point I knew I was doomed. At just the right RPM where my prop would grab a little before spinning I could get 2.5 MPH against a solid, gusting wind, whitecapping waves, and rain right in the face. Two hours of this got me back to the dock. Loaded the boat and pulled out to secure. The whiff of beautiful grilling hotdogs greeted me coming from the playground, so I went to investigate. There was a grill full of hotdogs and hamburgers just burning on the coals. The storm must have crashed a party because there was no one in the park at all! Well, was I wrong to grab a couple off the grill? The ones in the middle were burnt to a crisp, but the ones around the edges were just right!

Looks like that fish would explode if you pricked it! What do they eat all winter up there? Looks like that one ate somebodys cooler! Looks like you had a warm day to fish or else you're just punishing your kneecaps.

Making my third annual pilgrimage to Dale Hollow next week. Going after the SM record! Seriously, I will be trying to get a PB but also to catch the giant Shellcrackers. They are nothing like the Lake Havasu Crackers but they are spectacular just the same. Get to fish again with my childhood fishing buddy who will be camping at Standing Stone. Funny how fishing with very old friends makes you feel young and carefree again after all these years! We fished together couple weeks back and boated 100 dinks on the Cumberland. Just like old times except I was sober! This time though, we will be fishing gin clear mountain water as opposed to the Cypress swamp water we grew up on. Hope we can figure it out.

A-Jay's and Dwight's pictures got me so tore up yesterday that I had to slip away early and wet a line. (Hope my boss doesn't follow this forum). The Cumberland River is so low and muddy that it was like fishing in a stagnant puddle. I went up the Stones River (a major tributary) until I found clean water. Not much chance of boating a picture worthy Smallie, but at least I was away from the barges, ocean cruisers, and jet skis. Had the beautiful river all to myself and caught a bunch of dinks on the Aglia, including a Sauger, and the prettiest fish that swims, the Longear Sunfish. Keep it up fellas and I'll be unemployed!

Actually Fishlegs, she could write a whole book! I've seen several of her publishings and she could take this sophomoric thread and expand it indefinitely. Also her illustrator is superb as well. Can't wait for the release!

Sounds just like me! They are also dock squatters. In more ways than one!

That goes for me too!

I'm sure LM and SM are comparable to their nesting activities. From my personal experience spent observing my pond I can tell you for sure that the female has no role whatsoever in the raising of the young. After egg laying, she leaves. The male guards the eggs, then the fry. When the fry become free swimmers, he constantly circles them to keep them bunched. At this vulnerable time, he frequently breaks contact with his charges and chases away would be predators. Bluegill and bass crowd the fry and keep the male LM constantly busy. I have observed this many times. The school of fry gradually become a loose group of growing bass that eventually break apart and go their own way. I have never witnesses the male feeding on his fry, quite the opposite. I have seen a male bite a duck on the rear when it came to close to his brood. After the fry separate the male may or may not view them as prey. My guess is that he does at some point during his recovery. The female, however in my opinion, has no such scruples about feeding on available on fingerlings if given the chance, although I have not witnessed it in person.