Pickwick Lake - Sept. 10-17th

[Mustang]

Just returned from a quick hitter fishing trip to Pickwick Lake, Tennessee with my recently retired brother, who had fished Pickwick with me, with great results, back in the spring.

 

Since I work high school football games on Friday nights, and we had a bye this past Friday night, this was the only window of opportunity that existed for this particular trip.

 

I realized going in that it was waayyy too early for quality fall fishing, and this was quickly confirmed when the daytime temperatures ranged in the low 90's and the water surface temperature bounced between 78 and 81.

 

A thirty foot growth of weeds had grown surrounding nearly the entire north shoreline, and the north side of State Line Island - miles of it, so thick that you couldn't fish through it, or even on top of it. Many of the smaller adjoining bays were completely choked out. The locals were fishing ledges and main lake points, and since we don't possess any experience on the ledges took to the rocky shore line and main lake points, such as the one pictured, throwing lizards and Yamamoto 4 inch chartruse grubs as our primary go-to baits.

 

Once we established this pattern, we caught fish consistently. About five short fish to each keeper, with the shorts ranging from 12 to 14 inches, and the keepers averaging from 16 to 18 inches. Our biggest largemouth was 18 1/2 inches - 3 lb/2 oz. We also caught many smallmouth up to 16 inches, but no trophies.

 

We fished from 7:30am (CDT) to 1pm, when it simply was too hot to fish, and returned to the lake at 5pm and fished until dark, about 7:30pm (CDT) daily.

 

Pleasure boaters were brutal on Saturday and during the day on Sunday, but the fishermen owned the lake during the week.

 

Overall it was an enjoyable trip, with some good southern dining, and interacting with friendly people. We will return again in April, when the weeds will be gone, and our old haunts will once again be available to us.