How Do You Find The "ledges" At Pickwick?

[oldgolf4]

I have never really fished deep water anywhere. I would like to fish the ledges for Fall and Winter bass at Pickwick, but I am having trouble finding the "ledges". I only have a cheap Lowrance that came with my boat. I don't think I can afford a side imaging unit, but I am considering it. I have a couple of maps, but they don't show the contours very well. I can find drop offs, but can't seem to distinguish how they run or if they would be productive. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Moderators, if this topic needs to be moved to another forum please feel free to do so.

[J Francho]

Get a lake map with contour lines. Look for areas where the lines are close together. Then go out in the boat, and locate them on the graph.

[OPENLAKE]

Yep, a good contour map is the best place to start. Most bait shops and convienence stores near the dam or down to Yellow creek have them for sale. You don't NEED a side imaging high dollar depthfinder to get started. Take a look on your map at the major creeks and target some likely looking areas where shallow contours "drop" to deeper water. Ask around for what depth most fish are being caught and target those depth contours. Your current depth finder will most likely work. A few bouys will help you mark the areas you want to fish, then it's time on the water to dial it in. Good luck.

[Wayne P.]

If you cross a river channel perpendicular you can watch your sonar "draw" the channel ledges on each side.

If you have your screen scroll speed and boat speed just right, you can see both ledges on your screen when you cross the channel.

[MFBAB]

I like the Atlantic Mapping lake maps for TN river lakes, here's a link: http://www.atlanticmapping.com/pickwick.htm

As others said, you shouldn't have a problem finding this map at most of the local bait shops but you can order it online at that link. Fishing HotSpots makes a Pickwick map also but the one above is a little better, IMO.

Now, the easiest way I know to get around the ledges on the TN river is just to look for the marker buoys. They are there to mark the channel of course, but most of them will be strategically positioned to mark some kind of underwater/low water hazards that happen to be along the channel, and often these are great fishing areas(Rockpiles, Humps, etc.). The buoys are also marked on your lake maps so if you can find the buoy, you can reference your map to see what it's marking without a GPS or sonar, and then use your sonar to fine tune what you want to fish there - handheld marker buoys are extremely useful at this stage. Before I started fishing the TN river, I noticed on Bassmasters and other fishing shows that almost every time they were fishing the ledges there would be a buoy somewhere on the TV screen most of the time, and once I started getting out on the lakes myself it made a lot of sense Any visible current breaks you can find on the river will have potential too, as long as the current is running or you've got some wind, look for heads and tails of islands, points, bluff banks, etc., you don't have to commit to the main river channel in other words. Hope that helps a little.

[oldhippie]

what they said!

[oldgolf4]

MFBAB, The bouys make sense. I have looked at contour maps of the lake, especially from the d**n to Yellow Creek, and I can't see what I would call "ledges". Maybe I'm looking for something too dramatic, or I'm just too old understand! Thanks for the help.

[MFBAB]

I fish the Yellow Cr to the Dam section more than the section from Yellow up towards Wilson Dam, mainly because it's a little closer to Memphis and I've got a free place to stay on Yellow Cr.

The channel is definitely easier to follow as you go upriver towards Wilson Dam, especially from about Bear Creek on up, just because it gets narrower and more riverine. In other words, a creek mouth looks like a creek mouth, the current and eddy's are very visible, islands are really islands instead of underwater humps, etc. Compare the width of Pickwick above and below the dam at Counce and you'll see what I mean, it is similar to the area up at Wilson Dam/Florence - at least in terms of the width. Some good areas to try for offshore fishing on the dam end are above and below Stateline Island (more or less from Panther to Dry Creek) and the area out from Pickwick Landing, there are lots of humps with little creeks cutting through them along these stretches. I'm usually trying to find something that tops out at less than 10-15' and has a reasonably fast drop to deeper water on at least one side of it, preferably on the side of the main channel (current). Most of the really sheer dropoffs, like directly adjacent to the main channel, are pretty deep on that end of the lake, like the shallow side of it may be 30' deep or more dropping into 60', so I tend to gravitate towards the areas like I described above, even though they may be several hundred yards off of the main channel. Now if you go way upriver, you will find the ledges directly adjacent to the channel that top off in shallow water with those sharp drops like you are looking for. They exist on both ends, they're just covered up by more water as you get closer to the dam.

A good way to prospect on the offshore stuff is with a heavy C-Rig or FB jig, like 3/4 or even 1 oz, drag it around and when you feel a rough patch you are probably on a shell bed, toss out a marker buoy or drop a waypoint on it and fish it good, a lot of times you'll actually drag up mussel shells on your rig, that is a good sign - even if you don't catch a fish right then, they will be there at some point almost guaranteed. Drop one over when you get a bite too, it is pretty common to catch more than one on a spot offshore. Unfortunately that goes the other way too, you can go for a long time without a bite, you can be on the right type of structure at the wrong time, that's one of the things that makes it hard to develop confidence in fishing open water.

I was right where you are a couple of years ago on ledge fishing and I still have plenty of days on Pickwick when I can't figure out what to do, but if you hang with it for a while it will get better.

[roadwarrior]

MFBAB,

Let me know if you would like to get together on the river.

The bite is RED HOT!

[MFBAB]

Hey RW, I saw your pics from Sunday and I'm kinda jealous, he he Seriously, congrats on a great day to you guys. We haven't been to the river since before Thanksgiving, I plan on changing that early in 2012 for sure. I'll shoot you an email next week, I'd love to hook up and rip some lips after Christmas sometime.

[oldgolf4]

Thanks for all the help. I'm retired and plan to spend the time to either figure this out or take up bungee jumping without the bungee!