I was really looking forward to hitting the water Sunday with an old friend, and now Executive Director of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Ed Carter. (FYI, I worked for TWRA many years ago and Ed an I have known each other since those days).
It was another "mix & match" day in the Chickamauga Dam tailwaters. I really wanted to stick a striper or a smallmouth. The stripers didn't want to play (at least not in the time my patience lasted).
We switched to drifting shiners for smallmouth. While the white bass loved our shiners, it took a long time to find a brownfish for Ed, but we finally did. He also did big battle with a monster drum... great fun on light tackle. (video forthcoming)
We played with zillions of bluegill. We found lots of big females, but the big bull males still haven't arrived en masse. We were having enough fun that Ed called the hotel to request a "late checkout" ... that was good. :grin:
After tiring of catching bluegill, we started concentrating on cats. With the help of my partner Sam Simons, we found a "sweet spot." We caught good numbers of 4 - 6 lb. blues... with a couple of 8's and 10's thrown in for good measure.
Listening to Ed speak to the Tennessee Outdoor Writers Association Saturday night (that's why he was in town), I realized that as TWRA Director, he's dealing with a tremendous amount of stress that most sportsmen never understand. Hopefully Sunday AM we shed a little of that stress.
It was another "mix & match" day in the Chickamauga Dam tailwaters. I really wanted to stick a striper or a smallmouth. The stripers didn't want to play (at least not in the time my patience lasted).
We switched to drifting shiners for smallmouth. While the white bass loved our shiners, it took a long time to find a brownfish for Ed, but we finally did. He also did big battle with a monster drum... great fun on light tackle. (video forthcoming)
We played with zillions of bluegill. We found lots of big females, but the big bull males still haven't arrived en masse. We were having enough fun that Ed called the hotel to request a "late checkout" ... that was good. :grin:
After tiring of catching bluegill, we started concentrating on cats. With the help of my partner Sam Simons, we found a "sweet spot." We caught good numbers of 4 - 6 lb. blues... with a couple of 8's and 10's thrown in for good measure.
Listening to Ed speak to the Tennessee Outdoor Writers Association Saturday night (that's why he was in town), I realized that as TWRA Director, he's dealing with a tremendous amount of stress that most sportsmen never understand. Hopefully Sunday AM we shed a little of that stress.
