Ledges At Pickwick

[roadwarrior]

The cold front shut down the shallow bite or we just couldn't find it.

We spent a few hours early fishing grass and shallow structure, but

failed to find any takers. So, out we went.

We marked two holes, 23' and 27' surrounded by a 14' bottom. The

deeper hole was pretty small, the other about 20' X 30'. I caught the

first fish "trolling" a GMAN Jig/ Lobster while we were still getting set

up.

All of our bass were caught dropping off the ledge. We caught nothing

in the crevice nor coming up. Additionally, all of our fish were caught on

the upstream ledge. Another specific note, at least on this day, the baits

were dragged not hopped and all bites occurred while the baits were

moving.

32 bass, mostly +/- 3 lbs, but no big fish. All of our fish were caught on

jigs with a Lobsetr trailer and soft plastics (Rage Thumper, Anaconda,

tubes and curly tail).

-Kent

[00 mod]

Great outing! 32 bass for the day is fun!!

Jeff

[Tattoo25]

No luck south of you on the Delta Lakes. Went out Sat. and didnt catch a thing. I havent checked out Pickwick yet but it sounds like I need to schedule a trip. Congrats on the good day of fishin.

[roadwarrior]

You can duplicate this pattern on any Tennessee River reservoir.

[ctf58]

thanks for the info. Hoping to head to Lake Barkley Thursday afternoon to fish until I get tired, then anchor and sleep a few hours and start back up around 4am. What colors were you using and is Pickwick up to summer pool? KY and Barkley are still 1.5' below summer level. I wish you guys would let a little water downstream to us!

[Traveler2586]

32 bass, mostly +/- 3 lbs, but no big fish.

-Kent

32 fish +/- 3 lbs, but no big fish?!? What were you looking for? That would be a GREAT day on the water for me.

Congratulations Kent, keep up the good work

[roadwarrior]

Well, ya know fishing deep structure we kind of expect a few 5+. I don't think Pickwick

or anywhere on the Tennessee River is going to produce like Falcon, but hope springs

eternal!

[soopd]

I want to learn how to fish ledges. I am only 15 minutes from McFarland and 45 minutes from Waterloo. How do you go about finding a productive ledge?

I have fished some ledges the last few weeks on pickwick and I have only caught 10 or so small fish. I have 0 confidence right now on ledges. I have read every article on here about structure and it has helped a little but there is no substitute for seeing it with your own eyes.

[roadwarrior]

Track contour lines looking for debris or vegetation; sharp contrast or dramatic transition.

In our case, we were fishing the "up river" shelf of a couple of deep holes. Something you

might find easier is to locate the old creek channel or an underwater road bed. You may

want to fish the entire structure, but the best candidate are bends, especially if they appear

to have vegetation or accumulated shells. If you have a high quality depth finder, you will

be able to see both baitfish and predators.

[soopd]

The locations I found last week had tons of baitfish and looked like tons of fish. I just couldn't get anything to bite other than a few 13" fish. Got a long way to go and a lot to learn still. Just amazes me to here people catching 40-50 a day in the 2-3 range.

[oldgolf4]

Great day! Not trying to find out your "sweet spot", but were you in TN?

[roadwarrior]

Up river from the island just beyond the mouth of Yellow Creek.

[oldgolf4]

Thanks RW. I'm still having a hard time with the deep water fishing. Part of my problem is a 17 ft. alum. boat with a 12 volt trolling motor. Makes it very hard to stay on a spot, even when I occasionally think I find fish!

[roadwarrior]

After marking the spot you want to target, anchor down.

[Traveler2586]

After marking the spot you want to target, anchor down.

X2

Have lots of anchor line (100 ft) to hold your position, and work the line to move your position down river or up river, the wind will take care of side-to-side. If the wind is giving you a problem try setting two anchors, the main anchor up river, and a smaller anchor up wind.

[sidsmith03]

I can't wait to get back up there!!

[jisrael83]

RW –

How much water was the TVA releasing at the time you were catching those fish?

Sunday 5:30AM, we were fishing the old river ledge in this area: http://binged.it/NN9Rpr. We could see numbers of fish and bait on the depth finder. We tried numerous baits including running XD5 crank baits parallel and perpendicular to the ledge, with and against the current, dragging Texas and Carolina rigged rage tail worms, Carolina rigged spoons as well as 1oz brown football jigs and couldn't pick up any fish.

There really wasn't much current being generated at all, so I assumed they just weren't feeding, at least not on what we had to offer. We did pick up a few nice LM, shallow, back in the creek later on.

According to the TVA, more current is being generated later in the day, so conditions permitting we are going to hit the ledges up again this weekend when there are at least 4 or more generators running. Do you have any advice? It would be greatly appreciated!

J

[roadwarrior]

The schedule was for 10k early and 20+ in the afternoon. The current schedule calls for 11k all

***ht and morning , then 20+ from noon to 7:00. I don't think water flow will be an issue for you.

Find your spots and try locating fish with a DD22 or your favorite deep diver. Once you find them,

jigs and big worms are working. Specifically the Rage Tail Thumper (Black & Blue Fleck), 3/4 oz

GMAN Big O with a Lobster trailer (Falcon) and GMAN Mop Jig (Black) with a Black & Blue Lobster.

Two weeks ago the fish were all staging on the upstream ledge in about 14' of water.

[jisrael83]

Thanks alot RW! Hopefully I'll be able to report back with some nice pics after this weekend.

[tnriverluver]

Where do you find the TVA generating schedule. I fish the lake and often striper fish below the dam. It is often hit or miss driving all the way from Jackson not knowing if they are going to have more than one generator running.

[roadwarrior]

http://www.tva.com/river/lakeinfo/index.htm

[tnriverluver]

I have used that TVA website for several years for elevation. Took me a while but finally figured out how to get to the generator schedule. Thanks!!!!