Lake Chickamauga Elite Series

Practice – Day 2 Recap
Monday, June 9, 2014

Brent Chapman
This is my first time here. I came down in March and ran around for a day but that was it. I've not been very impressed. From everything I'd read and heard this was an awesome lake and fishes like Guntersville and Kentucky Lake, but I'm not impressed so far. I've had a few bites and they've been nice fish, but it's hard to put something together. It's very random.

It's going to be a tournament where being on the right spot at the right time and boat draw are going to be important. I'd heard the FLW event here was that way and you can definitely see it's going to be that way again. I'm still just scratching my head.

I haven't found a school yet. That's the thing. The few times I found what I thought was a school I couldn't catch anything and it has me thinking if they were even bass down there. From all past tournaments I've read about and stories I'd heard, you'd think this place is crazy good. It's been humbling so far.

I'm going to keep an open mind and keep trying. I haven't had many bites, but I've caught two 4-pounders and one of those was a smallmouth and today I caught a 6-pounder. They're beautiful fish. They're just few and far between. With the way my practice has gone, I'm kind of glad points aren't going to be involved this week.

Practice – Day 1 Recap
Monday, June 9, 2014

Aaron Martens
It reminds me some of Guntersville although I haven't really fished it much. I came here before cut off for 2 1/2 days and really graphed a lot. I just wanted to see the lake. It has a lot of stuff in it. There's a lot of grass and it's starting to pop up on some of the shoals. It's still pretty short, but there were spots where I saw it down in 7 or 8 feet. That was as deep as I've seen it.

From the guys I talked to today, the fishing's good. I think it was a little off being that today was Sunday and all the pressure and traffic that was on the lake. I can't imagine it getting any tougher. I fished around buoys and didn't see any current movement until after 7 p.m. today. I think it's going to be pretty important to be on something good when the current starts moving because these fish are about as stupid as you can get when the current starts. You can catch them on pretty much anything. When it's not moving, they're the toughest the catch.

With 140 boats out here, I can already see it's going to be tricky getting on spots. Already, I've seen numerous boats on each spot and it seemed like one section of the lake was really getting a lot of attention today. Once practice ends, those good schools are going to be covered up 24/7. I can tell the lake's a little beat up right now from all the tournament and fishing pressure.

I didn't fish a whole lot, maybe a couple hours total. The quality's there. This lake definitely has some big fish in it. If you can catch three or four of those a day, you're going to have a big day.