Chickamauga Lake

Chickamauga Lake May 4-8

Four friends from Memphis met Jack Neal and I at my house on Sunday about noon. Doyal Brown, Ron Taylor, Bill Caldwell and his son Todd Caldwell, Jack and I had lunch before heading to the Chick. We arrived in about three hours and examined our accommodations at Island Cove Marina and Resort near Harrison Bay on the lake. We had hoped to fish Sunday afternoon but it didn't work out after we examined the ramp and the parking situation wasn't great. We decided to launch at a public ramp a couple of miles away in Wolftever Creek. 

We launched at 6 am Monday without having a clue where to fish. Jack and I decided to fish the Creek. Fished some banks but looked for some flats hoping there were some spawners. We finally caught a few bass and Jack even picked up a couple of crappie on a crank bait. We then checked out a dockside restaurant named appropriately the Dockside Restaurant and had lunch. After lunch we found a creek or cove that looked promising. Jack immediately lost a nice bass on a modified umbrella rig. We caught a couple of bass in here then went into an adjacent cove. Found Doyal and Ron had had a little more success than us. Doyal had landed a 4.5 bass. We decided to meet at Dockside at 5 for dinner. Doyal called Bill and Todd to tell them. For the day we only caught 6 bass and the two crappie. The other guys had similar catches. Todd even had a nice smallmouth.

The next day was similar but we only had 5 bass. What we had learned from a local and a TWRA officer was that most of the bass had just come off the spawning beds and were recuperating (read, not feeding). The other guys did pretty much the same. On Wednesday Jack caught a bass on a topwater and I picked up a fish on a lizard both before the lights were off on the boat. Looked to be a great day. Not! Jack caught one more later in the day. I finally caught a 3.2 on a lizard and concluded our catches for the trip. Doyal and Ron had a better day but Bill and Todd had a slow day also. We had breakfast on Thursday and headed for our respective homes.

In summary, Chickamauga is a beautiful lake and have no doubt it is a great bass lake. We had no knowledge of the lake and we hit the early post spawn so it was disappointing in the catch but we truly had a great time together.