Mega-Schools Will Draw Crowds At Chickamauga

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Just about everybody in the field for this week's FLW Tour event at Lake Chickamauga likely found some groups of quality fish during their 3 days of practice. Now they'll have to wait until Thursday morning to discover how many of their fellow competitors found those same fish.

Hefty bags will come to the scale at the fifth stop of the circuit's 2015 campaign – there's no question about that. Not everybody will catch them, however, as there's simply not enough room on the lake's best ledges to accommodate 147 boats carrying two fishermen apiece.

In terms of quality, Chickamauga is as good as it gets on the fabled Tennessee River system. As for quantity, though, it doesn't rival Kentucky Lake, its much larger sister impoundment.

Fortunately, the ledges aren't the only possible route to a high finish at Chickamauga in June – that's been proven in the last two tour-level events it's hosted (the inaugural BASSFest last year and a Tour event in 2013). Some of the competitors who advance to the final day might never visit a single drop-off, as there are enough 5-pounders in the shallows to carry an angler who's uncovered enough of those single-fish locales.

The prevailing opinion is that the derby will be won from primarily from deep water, but nobody is ruling out the bank-beaters' chances this time.

Before getting into more about the bite, here's some of the lowdown on the lake itself.

BassFan Lake Profile

> Lake Name: Lake Chickamauga
> Type of Water: TVA impoundment
> Surface Acres (full pool): 36,240 acres
> Primary structure/cover: Ledges, humps, sunken islands, docks, brush piles, points, grass flats
> Primary forage: Gizzard shad, threadfin shad, various shiners, juvenile panfish
> Average depth: 18 feet
> Species: Largemouths, spotted bass, smallmouths
> Minimum length: 12 inches spots, 15" inches for largemouths, 18 inches for smallmouths (1 per angler)
> Reputation: Decline in vegetation knocked it down a few rungs years ago, but it has come back with a vengeance. The pre-spawn and post-spawn bite in recent years have been legendary and there's plenty of big-fish potential. It's not as big as other TVA lakes and schools aren't as numerous nor as heavily populated, but the chance for a giant bite is there.
> Weather: A bit unsettled, with thunderstorms in the forecast for the first 2 competition days.
> Water temp: High 70s
> Water visibility/color: Relatively clear, with a few feet of visibility in some places
> Water level: Full pool
> Fish in: 2 to 30 feet
> Fish phase: Post-spawn/summer
> Primary patterns: Crankbaits, jigs, spinnerbaits, Carolina rigs, big worms, swimbaits, flipping, some topwater
> Winning weight: 90 pounds
> Cut weight (Top 60 after 2 days): 27 pounds
> Fishing quality (1=poor, 5=great): 3 for Chickamauga
> Biggest factors: Patience. Who can wait them out the longest and fish with blinders on?
> Biggest decision: When to leave a spot and lose your place in a rotation for another school that may have just been fished out.
> Wildcard: A fertile stretch of grass that went undiscovered

For a closer look at Lake Chickamauga, check out the embedded map below, courtesy of Navionics.

Hawg Piles Conspicuous

There are wads of big bass on select ledges at Chickamauga right now that would cause anglers from some parts of the country to faint. These so-called mega-schools can be 100 yards long and 200 yards wide and they contain upwards of 500 fish or more.

With modern electronics, though, those conglomerations are real easy to find. And due to numerous factors (angler pressure, lack of current, etc.), the fish will frequently refuse to bite anything.

The relatively few places that harbor the gigantic schools will be magnets for much of the field. Other competitors, even though they know precisely where those schools are, will bypass them to avoid fishing under crowded conditions.

Such a strategy could work to their benefit.

"When they get to the last day and there's only 10 guys left, I'm guessing that half of them will be fishing deep and the other half shallow," said Chris Coleman, a well-known guide (www.ChrisColemanFishing.com) and tournament angler at Chickamauga. "The spawn was late and some of those fish are still up there, and there's a ton of bluegill and some shad still up shallow.

"The numbers aren't there like they are out deep, but there's some big ones on the docks and in the grass."

Speaking of grass, it's not nearly as prevalent as it was for the last two tour events. It exists in all the usual places, but most of it isn't fully grown.

"We had a lot of rain late in the spring that lowered the water temperatures and it just didn't get a real good start," Coleman said.

A Couple of Other Options

For anglers looking to fish ledges and also avoid crowds, Nickajack and Watts Bar lakes are getaway options. Coleman said that Nickajack likely won't be much of a player because the driving time to and from the best structure would eat up half the day, but Watts Bar could turn out some big sacks.

"For someone who's done their homework, Watts Bar can compete with Chickamauga," Coleman said. "The water's clearer and it's got more deep structure than Chickamauga does, but not same numbers of (quality fish).

"Guys going to Watts Bar would be locking through on the lower end, and that's right where the good structure is. That run would take them less than an hour."

Field Notes

Following are practice notes from some of the anglers who'll compete this week.

Clark Wendlandt
"My practice was kind of off and on. I found a few places, but the ledge bite was a little off because they're not pulling much current. I'm thinking I'm going to go with a mix – some shallow and some deep, and I'll do whatever's working.

"Most people are going to spend most of their time deep and a lot of that is probably based on potential. Everybody knows how good the deep bite can be here. I just didn't get many bites. I found a few ledges that hopefully aren't going to get hit all that much, but the rest of the places are really community holes. I don't want to have to go and compete for space and then have to sit on one place for the whole day."

Vic Vatalaro
"For me it's been kind of tough. I missed one of the practice days because my wife and I had a baby boy this weekend, so I stayed home until Sunday and came down and started my practice on Monday.

"It's a littler slower than I'd hoped – I didn't seem to be able to catch a lone in one area like usual. It was just one here and one there and I didn't get a lot of bites, and the ones I caught were just keepers and a little better. It's still Lake Chickamauga, though, and hopefully they'll bite (on Thursday).

"I'm going to start deep and then probably go shallow. There's fish in both places, but it can go the other way on you so easy that it's sick. That's what's going to make it interesting."

Spencer Shuffield
"I really had a good practice. I didn't fish a whole lot, but when I did I was able to get bit on some places. I found a bunch of stuff and I think I'm going to have most of it all to myself. They're little places – rock piles, stump rows or brush piles where you make a few casts and then move on.

"I spent all my time between the (Highway 60) bridge and the dam and I idled every ledge, point and hump. About 95 percent of the big schools are on the main river and there's only nine or 10 giant wads and everybody has them found. That's going to be a boat-number deal.

"The big schools are going to get pounded. There'll be seven or eight boats on them and somebody always sits right on top of the fish, and they'll completely shut down when that happens."

Larry Nixon
"It seems to be quite a bit tougher this time. They're not moving near as much water as they have in the past, so it's harder to get the quality that you usually catch here and a lot of the schools are smaller. A lot of places you're only seeing three to six fish instead of the big groups.

"There's going to be a lot of guys on every group, so all you can do is try to get set up someplace and hold onto it and survive. I've got to fish my strengths, and it's June, so that means I'm going to be out deeper. I fished shallow a little bit and never got comfortable with it, but that didn't really matter because I know I'm going to fish out.

"I'd be happy with 15 pounds a day. To make the Top 20 I'm guessing will take around 16, and I get might win if he could catch 18 to 19 all 4 days. I don't think we're going to see the really big stringers if they don't run some more current."

Wesley Strader
"It hasn't been very good for me. Everything's a little bit behind and some of the fish are in a pouty mode and they don't want to bite. The bites are sporadic and most of the time they just lay there and don't want to do anything.

"The lake's gotten a ton of pressure and the community places are just getting pounded. Every time I look at a place there's somebody fishing it. This isn't like Kentucky Lake, where there's just miles and miles of ledges.

"You're still going to see some good stringers and it's going to take (a total in) the high 70s or low 80s to win. A lot of people probably won't catch a lot, but the ones they do catch will be the right ones."

James Watson
"I found a few fish. I didn't look out deep hardly any because I know it's going to be crowded out there. I stayed shallow and there's some decent ones up there, but they can be extremely difficult if not impossible to catch. It might take all day to catch five, but there's some good ones up there to be caught.

"If a guy can figure out a way to catch half of what you can see (in shallow water), then it's definitely got potential. I'm going to jump on that bandwagon, for sure. There'll be plenty of checks cashed up shallow."

Top 10 to Watch

With the above in mind and more, here are BassFan's recommendations for the Top 10 to watch in this event.

1. Wesley Strader – The veteran is having the best season of his career and he comes to his home lake with a chance to solidify his hold on the lead in the Angler of the Year Race. There are no sure bets in fishing, but the odds on him still being around on Sunday would be very short.

2. Andy Morgan – He shows up on this list at just about every FLW Tour event, but he's more of a lock on the Tennessee River than anywhere else. Unlike many in the field, he'll know precisely what he needs to do when his ledge-fish aren't cooperating.

3. Michael Neal – He owns a tackle store on Chickamauga and is always completely in tune with what's going on around the lake. There are few unknowns about the impoundment at this juncture, but some of those reside up his sleeve.

4. Dave Lefebre – His March victory at Lewis Smith Lake put him on a hot streak and he's fishing well everywhere he goes. He's done nothing spectacular in his previous visits to Chickamauga, but his versatility and his momentum could write a different story this time.

5. Tracy Adams – In his first Tour season since 2009, he's established himself as a serious AOY contender and he's fared well at Chickamauga before (he was 17th at BASSFest a year ago). He can catch them shallow or deep and he'll get a chance to do both this week.

6. Larry Nixon – "The General" had been fishing extremely well of late and he's still dangerous when summertime rolls around. He'll have the patience to fish for the five "right bites" he needs each day.

7. Jacob Wheeler – The 2014 BASSFest winner has spent a great deal of time at Chickamauga over the past several years and has become intimately familiar with the lake. Crowded conditions don't bother him much, and that'll bode well for him.

8. Luke Clausen – He's posted Top-10 finishes each of the last two times he's visited Chickamauga and turned in a solid outing (31st) the time before that. Excellent decision-making this season has him in the thick of the points race and he's not likely to fade away now that summer has arrived.

9. Bryan Thrift – Sitting on deep schools of fish isn't his forté, but it's been proven that there are other ways to compile big sacks at Chickamauga. He's been making all the right moves this season and could make a run at his second win of the year.

10. John Cox – The laid-back Floridian is in the midst of a remarkable season that's seen him post three consecutive Top-10s. He sometimes brushes off his successes as strokes of pure luck, but fortune can't account for the run he's been on. He's simply catching them everywhere.

Launch/Weigh-In Info

Anglers will take off from the Dayton Boat Dock (175 Lakeshore St., Dayton, Tenn.) at 6:30 a.m. EDT each day of competition. Thursday's and Friday’s weigh-ins will be held at the Dayton Boat Dock beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday's and Sunday’s weigh-ins will be held at Walmart (3034 Rhea County Highway, Dayton) beginning at 4 p.m.

Notable

> Jay Yelas is determined to stay near the bank, avoiding the crowds that will gather on the mega-schools, whereas Luke Clausen's plan is to put together a solid deep-shallow mix. To read their practice summaries, click here to check out our Pro View Report.

Weather Forecast

> Thurs., June 11 – P.M. T-Storms - 90°/68°
- Wind: From the S at 6 mph

> Fri., June 12 – Scattered T-Storms - 86°/68°
- Wind: From the S/SW at 9 mph

> Sat., June 13 – Partly Cloudy - 90°/69°
- Wind: From the SW at 8 mph

> Sun., June 14 – Mostly Sunny - 91°/71°
- Wind: From the SW at 6 mph