Lake Chickamauga FLW Tour

Competition Wrapup
Friday, June 12, 2015

Jay Yelas

> Day 1: 5, 15-05
> Day 2: 4, 6-15
> Total = 9, 22-04 (106th place)

The first day was a decent day, and compared to (day 2) it was great. What happened today is just baffling to me.

The first day I was catching them mostly on jigs around boat docks and I probably had a dozen keepers. Today I tried fishing some new docks and new water because you normally can't go back to the same (shallow) stuff 2 days in a row, but I couldn't get it going.

I talked to some guys who did pretty well on weightless wacky worms and Senkos around the docks, and I didn't do enough of that. I stuck with that jig because they'd bit it pretty well the first day. It's a good lesson that you have to keep an open mind and just because you catch them fairly well one day doesn't mean you're going to do it again the next day. You've got to fish the conditions and what they give you.

Today I should've picked up the spinning rod and done more finesse stuff – I probably would've done better. I don't have any regrets about the pattern because several guys in the Top 10 are fishing shallow.

On the positive side, this is just a fantastic lake that keeps getting better and better. It just continues to amaze and impress me.

Practice Summary
Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Luke Clausen
I caught them pretty decent the last 2 days – I fished a little bit shallow and a little bit deep. I think a lot of it is timing, good fortune and trickery all mixed together. The schools I've found, I'm sure several other people have found them, too, and it's going to be a lot of fishing in a group.

More fish would swim out if there was some more current. A lot of them seem to be scattered on the flats and they're not in the places you can target them. The big schools, and even the little schools, all seem to be in obvious places.

I know some one-fish places where I can try to see if I can get a bite. If you're trying to get to a group of fish, there's a really good chance there's going to be another boat on it when you get there.

To win, I'm going to venture to say you'll need 80 to 85 pounds, and making the Top 20 will probably take 17 or 18 a day.

Jay Yelas

The fishing's kind of tough, but it's a great lake that's full of fish and if you work hard you can catch what you need. It's the same lake it's always been, but the grass isn't very prevalent compared to what it was in years past. It's like somebody took a lawnmower to it. There's fish around what grass is there, for sure, but you can't really flip it. You'll have to throw moving baits over it.

There's a lot of fish shallow, but the size isn't really there like it is out deep. I caught a 5-pounder on the second day of practice and I also had some decent bites (on Tuesday), so I'll probably do that mostly. This is a tough place to fish out deep because it fishes so small. I think you really have to commit to one way or the other and if you're out deep with that many guys, you really have to be dialed in.

My practice wasn't outstanding. I caught lots of fish, but the quality was hard to come by. You won't catch 90 pounds up shallow and that's what it takes to win here.

With not much current, a lot of the deep fish are suspended. The water's the clearest I've ever seen it and it's not moving. The overall weights might be off a little bit because of the conditions, but this lake has so many bass and these guys are so good that they're going to catch their share.

Day 1 Practice Recap
Monday, June 8, 2015

Jay Yelas

We were here 2 years ago and B.A.S.S. was hear last year, so there's a lot of information available as to what should be happening at this time of year. If you go by those two events, they were both won out deep, but there were still some shallow fish in play. You can get a check fishing shallow, but it's probably not going to be won there.

This place fishes real small on the ledges, but they've opened Watts Bar and Nickajack Lakes for us, so that might help spread guys out. I expect the same thing, though – it'll be won deep, but some guys will do okay up shallow. That's just how these Tennessee River Lakes fish in June.

There was no current at all today – that's typical for a Sunday on a TVA Lake, so the deep fish didn't do much. I fished shallow and caught a couple little ones, but I didn't find anything too good. I didn't look at everything, but one thing I noticed is there's not as much grass as when we were here last time. I've still got a good bit of looking around to do, so maybe I'll find some of that growing someplace.

Luke Clausen

I spent some time shallow just because so many guys did well up there last time (at the 2014 BASSFest). I caught some, but they weren't the fish you're going to contend to win with.

I also fished deep some, but there wasn't a lot of current and it's pretty hard to catch one deep right now. I checked out a couple of community holes, which is where most of the deep ones will probably be caught. Overall, it wasn't a spectacular day.

There wasn't even enough current today to notice, and it's like that a lot of times on weekends. It makes it hard to work up the desire to go out deep because a lot of fish will either move off (the structure) or they won't bite.

I'm definitely not going to commit to either deep or shallow – it's going to have to be some kind of mix. How much of one or the other I'll do is yet to be determined, but it won't be solely one or the other unless something drastically changes.

It's going to fish small. That wouldn't be the case if we were here in the spring, but there's only so many drop-offs and there's not enough to go around.