Percy Priest 10-6-2011

Thursday looked to be a great day for fishing, light wind, temp in the 80’s but a cool morning. Picked up Jack at 5:30 am, made a quick stop at Hardee’s for a breakfast biscuit and headed for Jefferson Springs ramp on the Stones River in upper Percy Priest. Beautiful sight, fog on the river, shad flipping, gar coming up for a quick surface flop, yep, gonna be a great day. 

We motored downriver a short distance to the flat beside the pumping station. Made a few tentative casts with topwater baits but saw no surfacing bass. Finally going to my old reliable, Red Eye Shad, I quickly hooked and lost 3 straight fish. Jack switched to a Rapala DT6 in silver and quickly scored. We caught and released (some early releases) 9 or 10 bass in the next several minutes. Most not too big but nevertheless fun to catch. After they slowed down we motored down lake to another large flat off the main river. Fishing was slow but we still picked up the occasional bass on this flat. There were a lot of shad but they didn’t seem to be in large clouds hovering near the surface. I think that is why the DT 6 did well because it ran a little deeper. I continued with the Shad and also threw the new KVD Square Bill 1.0 crankbait. Since Jack had not fished the upper part of Priest I wanted to show him a couple of more spots. 

We moved on down lake to Stewart’s Creek to a small flat that I have had some success on last fall. Picked up 1 there but not much happening. We hung around there for a while then went toward the back of the creek arm with the slalom course. Almost got hung up on a mud flat so we tried another small cove nearby. Jack picked up a couple of more so we moved again. I didn’t want him to embarrass me anymore. Went back to the big flat up river for another 2-3. Then headed back to the pumping station but someone was on our spot, so I headed upriver to the junction of the East Fork and West Fork of the Stones river. Again one or two fish picked up and decided to head in to the ramp around noon.

We didn’t keep an accurate count but were sure it was 15-18 fish, most small, with a few in 1 to 1.25 lb range. Jack had one really nice crappie on the crankbait. We lost nearly as many as we caught. Never have figured out how a bait with 2 treble hooks on it can release a bass so easily. Really was a nice day and got our lines stretched a bit but not much endangered with breaking. Fall fishing should get better each time out now until winter encroaches.