I'm fishing Watauga and Holston lakes. In Bristol and Hampton,Tennessee. Does any one know what might work or has any one fished them. Watauga lake has alot of trees in places an a few creeks that is my favorite lake I grew up fishing trout and catfish there but there r some big small mouth and large mouth there I'm not really sure what to look for on the map so any help would be appreciated

Hi,

I'm not much help here as I've gone down there to visit my bro and we've had minimal success on Boone, Watauga, and South Holston.

We average 1 fish every 3 hours, I'd say.  It's slim pickens for us and incredibly frustrating.

Got one on a topwater early morning; one on a weighted fluke, a few on a Rapala Shad Rap Craw color; a few on a chartruese squarebill. 

On Watauga, in the stump fields to the far right, we've had better success, but nothing big.

 

Been catching big an average size bass on jigs and worms wacky rig

Been a while since I fished that area but, i remember my uncles always talking about the frog migration at South Holston in the fall. They said that you needed to through on the bank and work them back down in the water - caught some nice smallies with this.  As for this time of year i had success using soft jerk baits - slug-o style baits - near creek mouths for smallies. rattling jigs in pumpkin and watermelon worked quite well too.

Jigs is were its at right now from what I'm figuring oit

Out worms ain't really working much been throwing a $1.97 jig with a trailer an a rattle inside and been catching nice fish