Daniel Tn, Chickamauga, Crappie, 10-21, Dad

[FishNews]

This is sort of a crazy ride. Dad and I had never fished Chickamauga before...well other than below Watts Bar dam on the rocks. We've been hearing about these big bass that the Chick holds, and wanted to try for one of the 6+ pound beasts that roam the waters in supposed large quantities. So off we went. We put in at Wolfetever...I think that's how you spell it. Anyway...the first trip down there was last week in which we bass fished the entire time. Didn't do worth a crap. But out of what I thought was a fluke...I catch a nice 12 or so inch crappie on a 3/4 oz lipless crank. <br /><br />To cover some water quick, we tied on some crankbaits and just began trolling the ledges and marking stuff along the way that we found with the side imaging. Hoping to encounter a "mega school" of bass....we instead, began catching some nice crappie. We just threw them all back for the day. All in all, we ended up with what woulda been 11 keeper crappie. We didn't have any crappie gear with us that day...but said we would come back later armed for business.<br /><br />Here's dad with one of them:<br /><br />http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b241/danieltn/dadcranks_zpsc92cb815.jpg<br /><br />So we came back Monday...the 21st. We started off with grubs and tubes...put in at the Wolfe again and didn't go far. There are a lot of anglers fishing out of there...most look to be crappie anglers. It struck me as kind of odd that there was nearly a whole parking lot full of people on a work day...both times we've been t here. Anyway...started off in the area we caught a lot of them trolling the crank baits in....except this time we were trolling grubs. Didn't catch but 3 fish on those...and two of those were very small. Only one keeper.<br /><br />So what do I do? Throw that crankbait out there for kicks and giggles while we trolled along. And one right after the other, began boating crappie. Dad soon followed...and next thing we knew, we had 20 keepers in the boat. Biggest was 14.25 inches...most all were white crappie, except the bigger ones were blacks. They were hitting VERY hard...but for some odd reason, they didn't want grubs and the normal crappie tackle. Water is falling pretty good...it had dropped about 2 feet from where it was last Monday...and temps in the upper 69 degree range. We seemed to do better in the wind blown spots vs the calmer spots...lots of shad everywhere. Lots of fish showing up on the graphs too but couldn't get any of those to hit anything...no idea what species they were. I took a snapshot on the sonar for ya'll though. Been a while since I logged a report...great to get back on the water.<br /><br />http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b241/danieltn/DSCF5633_zpsc9efc814.jpg<br /><br />http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b241/danieltn/DSCF5642_zps914c6515.jpg<br /><br />http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b241/danieltn/S00168_zps464f52ae.png