Troutgirl

Welcome to the fish tank!

I know that spot. It's quite popular with the Smallmouth set. 50 degree water there should be no more than 10 feet down unless there's a drought or somethin' and Fontana isn't releasing much....and this should hold true in summer unless there's a drought. Under average conditions, all the water in Chilhowee will roll over every two days. It's probably turned over even faster many weeks in the past several months. I hope that the 65 degree water was some kind of fluke and that the whole lake isn't 65 top to bottom.

I didn't use my Fishhawk. Chilhowee is the one lake where I thought I'd never need to use it. I'm surprised that you had to go 35 feet down to hit the mid-50's. Normally, the mid-50' is about 4-8 feet down in the lower lake, historically. Was your measurement at the dam? Most of the lake is less than 35 feet deep. I thought about the Fishhawk on the way home as my mind tried to make sense of the warm water. I'm still struggling to make sense out of 65 degree water coming out of Calderwood. Normally, Fontana's release water seldom rise above the low 50's. Fontana has generated off massive amounts of water repeatedly because of flooding fears. At one point, Fontana sluiced out one tube for a few days. Could it be that Fontana has run out of the really cold water this year...??? I'm having a hard time imagining any scenario where Santeetlah water and the warm, little Cheoah River could warm the Little T more than a scant, few degrees. I'd like to know what the temp of Fontana's release is today.

My brother I hit Chilhowee yesterday. From one end of the lake to the other, it was 65 degrees. This doesn't seem possible given how much water Fontana is generating upstream. It didn't seem unusual when we launched, around 9 a.m. , for the water to be 65 on the surface at the ramp. However, later in the afternoon, when we went up to the powerhouse, the water was 65 there too. They were generating one turbine then. Before we left for the lake, I checked Brookfield's flow page and Calderwood was releasing 9000+ CFPS. We trolled all over the lake for about 6 hours and never caught a Trout. Our first big strike on the hoochie line turned out to be an 18" Smallmouth. Not long after that, the downrigger spoon was hit and I was geared up for a Rainbow but the fish came up and jumped, another Smallmouth it was. It was a frisky one for 16". After that, all we caught were Yellow Perch. We caught and released at least a dozen. Most of 'em were small and hit the hoochie. I finally caught a decent foot long one on the the downrigger spoon late in the day. I think that the Rainbows were sluggish and wouldn't hit. 65 is warm for them, I presume that they've stocked Lakers and 65 degrees is pushing within 2 degrees of a lethal temperature for them. There must of been beaucoups of water from Santeetlah and the Cheoah River to warm up Calderwood's release to 65 degrees...???? Calderwood must have the same problem too...??? Too warm....

Are you kidding! She would appear to be over qualified! Si, oui, ya, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Welcome to the sisterhood of fish slayers!

All the Trout lakes without hydro water running into them are warm and I believe that the Trout are sluggish. The same goes for streams. Both North Carolina and Tennessee have had to delay some fall stockings because of too warm water. Chilhowee and Calderwood are the cool places presently. I may try Chilhowee soon.....

There were lots of those Saugereenies along upper Loudoun's stretch between Alcoa Highway Bridge and Little River when I was a kid back in the 1960's & 70's. I caught and ate them quite regularly. Then the silt-in really got going and they left. Was that one a Football fan....? .....waiting at the stadium in the ticket line.....with the Carps.....?

My TD Hawk continues to be buggy. The first time I dropped it at the dam it came back with just a reading at 5 feet. I threw it out again and dropped it 130 feet according to my reel. Meanwhile, apparently, I'd drifted to close to the penstock, water intake for the generators. My line never got down beyond 80 feet, apparently, because of the pull despite the big weight I use with it. It was 60 degrees at 80 feet. The current must of pulled my line way out horizontal....? We decided to start fishing really D-E-E-P and not measure the water yet again. It was a slow day. We started trolling about 8 a.m. The Solunar Table said there as a major feeding period from 9:25 - 11.25 a.m. We caught our first and biggest Laker, only 19", at 9:20 a.m. It was on the downrigger set at 101 feet. A few minutes later we caught a smaller Laker on a Magnum Dipsy line. It was slow after that. We caught 9 Lakers total and most were 16-17". We ended up keeping 3. The last fish we caught, which I thought was going to be a 5-6 pound Laker because it fought like crazy and didn't want to come up and took line a couple of times. It turned out to be a 3-4 pound Catfish. It hit a spoon behind the Magnum Dipsy. We had 6 lines out all day. The only strikes came on the downrigger and Magnum Dipsy lines with spoons. I had a Kastaway Super Magnum Diver out all day. The chart said it would make 70 feet with 200 feet of line out. When it didn't get a hit with 200 feet out, I kept putting out 15 more feet several times, no dice. We saw fish at 60 - 120 feet all day long. We had 3 plugs out on lead line that never got struck. It was frustrating seeing all these fish and having so few strikes. We did have a few missed strikes. I got the feeling we were seeing so much on sonar because the fish were so deep that they didn't scatter much when we went over them. The downrigger was always set over 100 feet and as deep as 117 feet. I don't wanna try Watauga again till next year.....

I'm going to try a 6", Reef Runner XL plug on lead line tomorrow at Watauga, 8-9 colors out. I'm expecting the fish to be very deep. I hope that big plug will scare off the little ones.

That's a nice Pink! It's almost as big as my brother's Perch..... My brother and I are going fishing soon.....we're leaning towards Watauga.

Fontana used to be chocked full of White Bass. I had a Carolina Permit two years in a row back in the 70's. When we trolled, we frequently caught Whites and some of everything else in the lake. I've heard that the White Bass population has fallen some since the Alabama Bass took hold.

I'd put the pictures here but I don't know how to down-rez 'em to fit. See 'em at Caroliner. The big Perch was beautiful and had the most red lower fins that I've ever seen. They're usually quite orange. I didn't take a very good picture of the Steelhead Rainbow. It was a purr-fect is a gxample of their stretched-out torso. We did miss a few species. After catching nearly all Browns on my last trip up there, I expected to catch one, but no. We saw a school of fish sitting deep and hoped they were Walleyes but they must of been White Bass because we caught two 'em in a row. Rex has yet to catch a Walleye. I wish we'd luck into one on one of our trips. A Walleye and a Brown would of been a slam.

See my fishing report over at NC Anglers Forum. Rex and I hit Santeetlah yesterday. The top of the lake is so very warm. The TD Hawk revealed the temp was 51 at 100 feet down by the dam. We trolled the spoons on the downrigger at 50 feet. We ran size Zero and One Dipsy Divers with spoons, a flat line with a plug, and my new ultra light lead-core rod with a plug. We had 5 lines out all day. We take turns on the fish. Rex went first. As we trolled away upstream from the dam, it only took about 3 minutes to get a strike. Rex caught a 16" Yellow Perch. I was just finishing putting out the second line, the downrigger spoon, when the Perch struck. We caught another smaller Perch, 2 Largemouths, 2 Smallmouths, 2 White Bass, and 3 Rainbows. All the fish, except one Largemouth, hit at 35 feet or deeper. It was Rex's turn when the two best Trout hit. He caught a 20.5" , 3.15 pound Rainbow, and an 18" Steelhead Rainbow. Some of the Rainbows in there are the Steelhead strain that have several extra vertebrae and have a longer build. I had a small spoon with a single hook on the downrigger at the start of the day. We only hooked one of the first four strikes on that spoon. I managed my only Rainbow on it. I took it off and put a blue & silver Michigan Stinger Scorpion, 2.25", spoon on with a treble hook. The two bigger Rainbows hit it. I usually catch more Trout and less other at Santeetlah but the Perch and White Bass we had for din-din were tasty. We're having Trout tonight. Well, we had a good time. Rex was tickled about his biggest ever Rainbow. We let all the Black Bass go.....