Club & Region 10 tourney today on Cherokee.  Total of 61 boats entered.  Club had 14.  Registration took forever.  Tom and I didn't get to blast off until about 7:45.

Caught my first about 10 minutes in.  16.5" smallmouth (18" to keep).  Fished another two hours, nothing.  Running up the lake, stopped on a heavily fished point, got a keeper largemouth on a Shad Rap.  Thought the day was going to turn out pretty good.

Nope.  Guess this fortune could have been better...

Got that one Friday night on the way to the lake.

We kept running up the lake, stopping here and there.  Tom wasn't getting any action and what I was getting wasn't good enough.

Had a good day numbers-wise, just nothing of any size.

Tom did help clean the lake up...

Yep, he caught part of a gun rack.

Running back towards the ramp, made one last stop around an island.  Tom answers his phone, makes a wrong move and Mr Motorola is in 10' of water.  Turned what was a bad day for him into perhaps one of the worst days I've ever seen anyone have on the water.  I think he's going to give up fishing.  Anyone want to buy a ton of Daiwa reels? 

Lone keeper ended up being 2 even, garnered us a 13th place showing.  Once again we don't finish last.  :-/

Took around 15 lbs. to win the region, 10 lbs. to win the club.

It' ok, at least you were properly attired.  Nice smallie though.

I caught two identical smallmouths today.  Both 16.5".  Those and the one keeper I actually had would have elevated me into 10th or 11th place.

18" to keep!?!? Sounds like you just happened to have the wrong species bite the hook.

There are two TN lakes where you can keep 15" smallmouth (Boone, Watauga), one that has a 17-22" 'slot' which allows one under 17" and one over 22" per day (Norris).

The rest are either 18" or 20".  The TWRA has some strange notion about wanting the state to be a destination smallmouth fishery.

Since the 18" regulation went into effect a couple of years ago, we've weighed an average of 2-3 smallmouth per tournament.  Tons of 15-17" fish.

Still a great day Burley......you were fishin' and I was workin and watchin it snow here in Texas  Glad you had a good time

Big O

www.ragetail.com

That's the breaks Burley, that deal with your bud's phone along with some other recent stories makes me think I am going to get a lanyard for my phone.

Ky. Lake in TN waters is still a 15" size limit on smallmouth.

I fished a BFL regional at Cherokee. I really didn't like that lake very much. The structure it too radical.

At least your partner can say he caught a wallhanger!

I want to love the lake, just need to spend more time there.  I like it more when the lake is somewhat full.  Quite a bit of good stuff high & dry right now (lake is approx. 25' below full pool).

I want to love the lake, just need to spend more time there. I like it more when the lake is somewhat full. Quite a bit of good stuff high & dry right now (lake is approx. 25' below full pool).

I fished it in Oct 2005. It was way low. Your right, it probably would fish better with some water in it. I saw lots of good stuff on the banks then. I know it's got some good fish in it. The parts I fished just seemed to be really deep channels that went straight up to a shallow flat. There was no in between.