I'm thinking of heading up to TN on the 12th to fish the Native No Limits Big Bass tournament at Chickamauga. A couple of items:

 

• There is no rule regarding sharing information
• This is a no limit tournament and not Best 5. As long as a bass is over 14", it counts
• There is also a $1,000 prize for the biggest bass caught every hour of the tournament

 

Due to my work schedule, I don't have any time to pre fish. It's a 4 hour drive, and I plan to get there 30 minutes before launch time and head out on the water. My issue? It's a big lake and I have no idea where to start.

 

My first thought is to launch at Wolftever Creek, push in towards Summer Haven, fish a lot of docks, then move out into Harrison Bay and Patten Island.

 

A second thought was to launch at the Dayton boat ramp and fish the sloughs and main river in that area.

 

We can't go above the Wats Bar dam or below the Riverwalk dam.

 

I'm thinking about bringing my pedal drive kayak instead of my AP120 if I'm going to be trying to push into the sloughs.

 

Anyway, any insights would be appreciated as this is just a hit and run with no pre fishing on a lake I have never seen before.

It’s an ocean on the bottom half, we’ve nearly broken a bass boat in half . Be careful, only fishing advice I have is for drum haha. Have caught some nice smallies below watts bar dam but I used shad in winter when the water was raging. It will be low ish flow in April 

I've fished both areas. Lots of traffic coming out of Rich Creek from Dayton to Hiawassee River...   Possum Creek gets a lot of traffic...   Chester Frost is a zoo.... Last time I was there it was 200 boats out of Dayton and 150 boats out of Chester Frost plus recreational boaters. I caught a lot of fish around the islands outside of Harrison Bay and a few off of docks in CF. A lot of big fish are caught around skull island and a lot of the community holes near the power plant. Between Dallas Island and Sequoyah seems to be what wins tournaments... 

I’m from south Florida where deep is 6 tov10 feet in our shallow weedy lakes.  Chickamauga was like fishing on the moon. I’ve done it serial times but not successfully .  The only spots I had any luck was shallow around boat docks.