This report covers the last 2 weeks:

The crappie and bass bite has remained good with the crappie leaning towards excellent several days this last week. We have primarily been focusing on crappie fishing as I finally bit the bullet and purchased the Garmin Panoptics and let me tell you, that thing is incredible! Coming up soon I will be offering Panoptics trips focusing on learning how to setup and use the system. Back to the reason you are here, fishing! Like I said above the bass bite and the crappie have been pretty good as of late and the crappie have been excellent on a lot of days. The water temp has been hanging around the mid 40’s on the main river and low to mid 40’s in the creeks. Water color has been good on both the river and creeks with some creeks being a little more clear then what would be considered normal. With the frigid week ahead of us this week I have no idea how low the water temp will fall and would guess we will be in the mid to upper 30’s in a lot of places. In classic Tennessee weather next week the temps look great being in the 50’s and 60’s so hopefully the water temps will bounce back pretty quickly.

Winter fishing is some of my favorite fishing of the year. At no other time do the bass look so fat and heathy and the fishing pressure being low seemingly makes the bass bite better. Winter fishing can be hit or miss some days as 90% of the fish use 10% of the water, however winter is the best opportunity to actually pattern fish. Old Hickory is not necessarily what I would consider to be a pattern lake but in winter you often are able to call your shots and run a pattern all over the lake. Not to mention winter is your best chance at catching a truly big fish. Out of the 4 bass I have caught over 8lbs in my life on Old Hickory, everyone came between January and March. It’s big fish season!

The bass bite has remained about the same if not improving since the last report. I have to think that the bite improving has to do with the cold temps we’ve had the last week, grouping the fish in the typical winter patterns. We are still focusing on channels, whether it be creek or river, and basing our approach off that. We did not get to fish shallow very much as the cooler weather and cloudy sky combined with the winds didn’t allow the water to warm very much most days. The same baits continue to produce for us including the A-Rig, jerkbaits and jigs. Rock is a big deal as well this time of year, the sun warms the rock quicker then the surrounding water and will draw the fish to them. Also plastic dock floats not only warm the surrounding water but also provides cover for the fish. Bass fishing around deeper docks is an often forgotten about pattern. In my experience the key to fishing deep docks is clean water making those fish suspend around the floats as they warm.

Baits: Like I mentioned above the most productive baits have remained about the same. The A Rig is hard to beat paired with natural colored swimbaits. For the last couple years I have used the Yum Flash Mob Jr as it is good quality, available at almost every bait shop and very cost effective option compared to others. Your classic winter time baits are also productive on days you cant get bite on the arig including jerkbaits, jigs and ned rigs. There again I keep it simple with natural colors with maybe some chartreuse thrown in on the jerkbaits. Check some of my earlier reports for some of my favorite brand and styles of jerkbaits.

The crappie bite has been good to excellent some days over the last 2 weeks. We have had some pretty awesome days lately with one day producing over 60 keeper crappie! All of our trips have provided clients with fish for the cooler and a fun day on the water. Panoptics has really opened my eyes and I have learned so much just watching the fish and making adjustments to get the bite. I am really excited to get back out on the water and continue learning all I can once this snow and ice go away. We fished every day last week other then Thursday and despite the super cold temps we were able to catch a mess each day.

 Just as with the bass crappie use 10 % of the water 90% of the time in winter. With the cold week we are having I assume any fish that weren’t already deep will be deep the next time we are able to fish.  That’s not to say if you were catching shallow crappie they will be gone. I have several shallow banks the crappie seem to use heavy during the winter and I will be hitting them regardless of the temps. Our most consistent productive depths have been from 20-30 fow and just as with the bass the productive baits have remained the same. Bobby Garland’s Baby Shad in a variety of colors have been our best producer fished on a 1/8^th, 1/16^th or 1/32 oz head depending on the application. Some of my favorite colors are red/white, red/chartreuse, milk monkey and electric chicken. There’s something about that Baby Shad that just plain gets bit!

For some reason I am not able to make links to the products I am talking about but in some of my last reports you can find them there.