polo-dog, Chickamauga, Crappie, Bass, 3/6/09, Freida

[FishNews]

Freida and I decided to go looking for active fish late this afternoon. We got on the creek about 4:15. First we scouted back in the creek looking for baitfish and bass. We went to nearly the back of Long Savanah creek and cast at some cover on a flat and didn't see or have any action. Saw some movement on the first bend of the channel but no hits. Went to the next drop/eddie on the channel and marked some fish but didn't get a bite. Was going to the next spot downstream but was going to be close to a crappie hole so decided to cast a panfish assassin a few times and I was glad that I did. I fished there for 30 min. before the wife called to say we were going out to dinner and had 8 fish on with 6 being longer than 13 inches. I haven't been into that big a bunch of bruisers since summer and never in the creek before. The wind was blowing me around and had a bow blown in the line so it was tough to see the takes but most of the time the line was just a tad bit slack or tight and when I set the hook there was another good fish on the line. The fish were mostly on a 4 count, some were deeper and most came after a 1/2 to 1 full turn of the reel, slowly, followed by a couple of "palsy twitches" a la drumking and a pause. The spot was next to deep water and once I got over deep water I would let the bait drop, twitch a few times then drop again, rather than staying with a horizontal retrieve. I will plan to get a pic of a few tomorrow as they are in my "live well" at the dock. I did let the biggest fish of the day get off at the boat, it was the second fish that I had on and looked to be over 14 inches. Once it got off I decided to use the net rather than try to lift them into the boat as that's what let the other one get off. I was really surprised that the fish were so agressive and there were so many big ones in one little spot. Usually in that spot I will catch one or two nice ones and then the big ones get spooked and I'm lucky to catch a couple of dinks after that. It was a beautiful afternoon to be out there.