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Crow Terminator

Crow Terminator

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 23, 1999
Messages
13,096
Location
McMinn County
They say, strike while the iron is hot. The rainbow bite is hot right now. I am having a ball; these fish are pigs...the best quality fish I have caught in my life. I am used to going trout fishing and calling it a good day if you get one 14 inches. We are hitting 16-20 inches just about every trip now. It just seems crazy to me. I know you guys that live in better trout areas are probably looking at this and going "this dude is crazy" but I swear, we are not used to these kinda fish.

I also thought I had a brown trout and took the picture and let it go. I knew browns get really big and this fish wasn't but 12 inches or so. I told my brother inlaw that I had finally got a brown. He got one too and showed me the one he caught...and I said "yours looks different...mine had all yellow spots on it". He asked me if I had took any pictures of it and I did....showed it to him and he says "well...the bad news is, you still ain't caught a brown. The worse news is, you threw back the biggest brook trout I've ever seen; that one would have been a TARP certificate". I was tickled with the rainbow sizes but the fly fishing guys I showed the fish to, were going crazy over the brook. I told them my goals this year were a 10 pound rainbow and to catch a brown...they said that brook trout trumps a 10 pound rainbow. I dunno. I still would rather have the 10 pounder hahah The biggest in this bunch was a 3.02 pound rainbow. It had some BIG fillets on it.

20200511_193940 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr

20200511_193806 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr

20200511_164606 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr

20200511_153407 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr
 
Chaneylake - I am starting to get the fly fishing itch but can't make myself take the jump to it. All the guys I know that do it are serious about it and have $900+ in just a rod and I bet I don't have $900 in all my gear combined. I use spinning rods/reels. I have several different ones but my work horse is a 6' 6" light action rod with a 2500 series spinning reel. I use 4# line...I have a new line to me that has made a huge increase in bites and is great all the way around. Seaguar Red Label 4#. Baits...depends on whether you're fishing for stocker fish in streams or river fish. Different tactics. Stockers eat anything. You can throw kernal corn and catch them with split shot rigs. They eat the Powerbait doughs of any colors. Powerworms, etc. You can even catch them on Velveeta cheese chunks. Inline spinners fished slow, etc.

The bigger fish in rivers and tailwaters seem to like different stuff. Live minnows, crawfish, Rapala style jerkbaits, etc.

The stockers don't wander far from where TWRA dumps them in. You just have to be first to get a good spot beside a stocking hole. They are fun but after a while, the 11 to 12 inch fish get a bit boring IMO. You'll eventually start wanting to pursue bigger fish and or harder challenges equipment wise, or both. The bigger fish require going to water where they are known to be....that's obvious I guess. You'll never catch one where there ain't one. Some Tennessee tailwaters hold big browns and rainbows. Arkansas's White River is well known for trophy Browns and the big rainbows there are quite common but take a backseat to the giant Browns.

Learning to read a pool and the best places that hold fish and where the bigger fish hold is important too. Entire books have been written on that kinda stuff though.
 
Nice trout. I had a spot years ago, I was a sophomore in HS then, that produced 18-22" rainbows with a limit then of 7/day for the spawn. You didn't even have to move, just go to that specific rock and cast a small rapala and hold on. Unfortunately we had a bad spring a couple years later and that spot eroded and the fishing hasn't been the same since.
 
Congrats man, you've been catching some good fish! As far as the brook trout goes and don't take this the wrong way but they are stocking them in the "stocked" streams and they are tarp fish when they dump them out. This is one thing TWRA is doing that I'm totally against. I wish they would leave the brookies to the wild streams where they are just that and reproduce on their own. Show me a true wild tarp brook trout and then you've accomplished something. I've caught one and worked my tail off to get it. Brook trout are just different and imo don't belong in stocked streams via truck.
 
No offense taken. I kinda thought something along those lines this morning. I caught 3 of them, all cookie cutter size 9 to 10 inches out of the same general area as the one the other day. Still ain't caught a brown. Is TWRA stocking them, or is it Trout Unlimited? I may be dreaming it but seems like I remember reading something about one of the local chapters of trout fishermen pushing to have brookies stocked. Not just a brook trout, but the strain of them that grows bigger and faster than the natives, like what I have been catching.

Didn't do worth a flip this morning. We caught about 6 a piece but they were small. Threw them back. I kept 1 rainbow that was right at 12 inches but hooked somebody's line that I thought had been broken off cause it was hung then realized it had a fish on the end of it. I hand line landed it and kept it too. It was about the same size as the one I had. I did stumble backwards while fighting the current in about waist deep water and tripped over a rock. Ended up falling and getting soaked. Not fun. I feel like somebody beat me with a boat paddle this afternoon from fighting current.
 
For what it's worth, I accidentally stumbled onto a new (to me) way of cooking trout that I like.

I usually pan fry them but I wanted to try some recipes for them. One involved broiling them in the oven. I added my butter to the pan, put some salt, pepper, and blackened seasoning on them and let them broil for about 20 minutes on one side and 10-15 on the other. I did the whole trout, not fillets. The fillets only called for 6 minutes. I knew as soon as I opened the oven that I had just ruined 4 fish. I CANNOT stand eating fish that smells like fish...and this had a healthy aroma of that. Blah. I tried eating a bite and spit it out. Despite the seasoning, I couldn't taste nothing but blah. I told my wife...."this is like eating tuna straight out of the packet...nothing on it" and as soon as I said it, the wheels were turning. I grabbed a small bowl and put all the fish meat in it. Then got a spoon and a big glob of mayo and stirred that stuff up. OMG what a difference. I'm a big tuna eater...tuna and crackers or a tuna sammich with tomato and some chopped onion...well lemme tell ya. Fresh trout done that way may be my new favorite way of eating it.
 
TWRA stocks the brookies in the put and take fisheries. TU does a lot to manage the wild trout streams but only the ones that are true southern strain fish. Years ago they did a reintroduction program in a couple of streams with northern strain brookies that grow quite a bit larger than southern strain. At the time, they didn't realize they were two different genetic strains. The streams with the northerns are no longer managed. I would assume the stocker fish are northern since they are much easier to get and obviously quite large.
 
They will smash a #5 Rapala, I can tell ya that. I've caught more of them the last couple trips than I have rainbows.

Friday I did have the longest fight with a rainbow I've had to date. I never got to the point of turning it. It was a big male, looked to be 22-24 inches long but was all girth. That fish was huge from the back to belly. It jumped big high jumps about 6 times and swam right at me once. I nearly was able to net it but it saw me and spooked back the other direction. It pulled drag the whole time it went away from me. Very fun and exciting. It made another hard run and just came unbuttoned. That's always the trouble with treble hooks and jumping fish...a lot of times they end up coming off. I estimate this one was a 6 or 7 pounder. This has gotten to be a regular thing (losing bigger fish) but at least I get to see them and feel them for the fight.
 
Sako":189rvg5n said:
man... what stream are you catching those in
Click to expand...

I do a rotation or have been. It's back to work Monday so fun is over.

I would fish Tellico and Citico on Mon-Wed and then if the water schedule was right, fish the Hiwassee on Fri-Sat. My best day was a Monday evening when they didn't run water on the Hiwassee but I think that was a fluke cause they normally run it wide open through the week til Friday then they start turning it off and on, off and on. I was wanting to get up to the Clinch while I was off but the generator schedule has been wide open for it, non stop. A lot of the anglers in that area have started complaining about it. They were supposed to start doing the recreational flows the first weekend of May but they have postponed it indefinitely. That cuts out all the fishermen from getting access to the water without a boat.
 
You've been catching some good ones. They used to catch a few good ones on the Obey River close to Celina.
 

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