Cherokee Lake, Tn Fish Health?

[D.Cox]

Fished today with a friend from 7-12 on Cherokee. We started off with buzzbait and did not have a bite on top. My buddy caught a one on a Rattle Head Jig and I started fishing a jig also, by 9:30 we had 4 keeper in the boat. We tried a few other things and probably should stayed with the jig the whole time. The fish did not want to chase anything, tried spinner baits, crank baits, spook and rattle traps. Only accounted for one small fish on a shad rap. The water temp was 55 and overcast .

Cherokee usually produces more nice fish, but this year the fish have been skinny. I have caught 2 in the last 3 weeks that should be 7-8 pound fish and have big heads, long and skinny that went 5 to 5.5. These fish look healthy, but look like that have just spawned out. This lake is full of shad, even the smaller fish don't have bellies. Tournaments weights have been down this fall.

Anyone have any Ideals?

[NewAngler]

weird.

My guess is they are trying to watch their figure for the upcoming spawn...

[DEbassman17]

Has the water been cold lately? If so it could be slowing down the fish a little, maybe causing them not to eat as much??? I'm not an expert this is just my guess 

[D.Cox]

No the water color and temp have been good. The temp now is 55 and we have had a lot of rain fall. We  had a few days that it was muddy, but most of the time it is clear to lightly stained. This lake has a ton of shad in it. It was at full pool this year, it has been low the last few years.  One thing I have noticed is that my live wells do not have the crawdads spit up in it after a tournament. This could be because the like is high for this time of year. This lake drops 25 feet from summer pool to winter pool.

Dow