Lake levels have dropped to just over 356ft by last Friday. TVA is predicting the lake to remain stable this week, but the weatherman is predicting a large amount of precipitation mid week, which could cause the lake and rivers to surge upwards again depending on how much rainfall the TN river valley receives. Flow rates remain high, as TVA tries to maintain lake levels near winter pool, flow rates early this week are expected to be in the 120,000cfs range, normal is around 25,000-40,000cfs. Expect flow rates to increase if we do see added rainfall this week. Water temps have come up a bit, last week we saw snow melt and some cooler nights, but with warmer nights and sunny days, expect water temps to increase this week. As of this past Saturday, surface lake temps were in the mid to high 50’s. The Duck river is nearly normal, with flow rates on the Duck at 8,000cfs.
The ABA District 40 make-up tournament was this past Saturday out of Cuba Landing. Their next event will be the 26th of March out of Pebble Island Marina. The Hunt’s Outdoors Trail’s next tournament will be on April 9th out of Danville.
The fishing scene has seen some improvement, as spring approaches and we start to see a few weather related items come together, including warming water temps, stable water levels, and more consistent weather patterns, we will start to see many fish head towards their spawning patterns. Most of our sports-fish will spawn when surface temps hold around the 68 degree mark. Most common times for crappie and bass to spawn in our area is around mid April, but remember that not all fish spawn at the same time, there always will be some which will spawn earlier, and some who spawn later. Crappie have started the migration pattern of ‘stair stepping’ towards shallower water, with last week, most crappie being found in water deeper than 18ft, but now have begun to show up in water averaging 10-15ft, most successful crappie fishermen have been using techniques using multipole presentations, such as spider-rigging and long line trolling, although many using vertical presentations using ‘forward facing sonar’ such as panoptics, live scope, etc. have been finding some quality fish. Bass continue to be caught using brightly colored baits in the crawfish patterns, also using creature baits presented around stumps and cover in water with rock bottoms in shallow water. Look for bait activity to improve your catch. Catfish activity remains on the upswing, with most fish still along the river drops in areas where the current is slowed down around underwater points. Baits that have been producing the best are night-crawlers and cut bait.
The Duck River bottoms, as well as all other areas of the TN National Wildlife Refuge are now open. Water is moving within the bottoms, but fish haven’t seemed to move to the flowing water (culverts) yet, probably because the bottoms water temps have warmed close to spawning temps, and the fish have moved shallower to find spawning areas.
Turkey season will open next weekend, with the juvenile turkey hunt being on March 26-27th. The regular spring turkey season will begin on the following weekend, April 2nd and continue until May 15th. limits are one(1) bearded turkey/day, not to exceed three(3) for the season. More information on this years turkey season can be found in last years hunting guide on page 38, or by going to TWRA’s website; TNWildlife.org