Guntersville 4/15-5/13

Looks like I will be spending a month or so fishing up there. I have two tournaments coming up on the lake (one 4/29 and another 5/13). I've never been particularly good here. In fact, I'd say that I hate the lake. Not because the lake isn't good, but because I'm not good there.

I recently purchased (2) Helix 9's G2N. I figure I will spend a lot of time idling around staring at them. I have booked a guide trip with a buddy of mine for 4/17. Not sure who it's with as my buddy lined it up.

Any hints, tips, patterns, or baits would be appreciated. I'm hoping the shad spawn will get going and the spinnerbait bite will be going on out on the shallow ledges. I always get a kick out of the "fish the grass" advice...... as if the whole damn lake didn't have grass everywhere!

Thanks,

The fish should be shallow in april and may. As far as baits id probably just flip a kinky beaver or biffle bug all day and throw a buzzbait or frog early

Spend some time in Siebold. Bridges will be good the first tournament but you'll have company. Big swimbaits and crankbaits around the bridges. Spinnerbaits and rat-l-traps in Siebold. I hate the rat-l-traps but I've caught so many big fish on them at guntersville I have to throw one in March and April.

What color you like in the 'Trap this time of year, Brent?

I usually throw a chrome/blue Cordell Super Spot more than a trap. Best tourney I ever had at g-vile was mid-April and I had 27-7 on the Super Spot. I lost a 10+ and 2 more that were 5+ that day too. That's the downside of throwing a trap/spot.

Always put better hooks on a trap before your throw it. .02

The Excalibur x50 & x75 come with premium hooks, that's what I used at Guntersville for a rattle bait.

Throwing a trap on what? Flats? Points? Humps? Just assuming you were ripping it through the grass.

Flats near spawning areas. Use it as a search bait when the sun gets up. Throw a spook above grass early. Lots of kicker fish get picked up line that. Throw plastic if the sun stays out in areas you find fish. Jerk bait if it's cloudy. You can catch all the fis you need in islands.

If your tournaments are 4/29 and 5/13 then you likely could find fish in pre-, spawn and post-spawn. Pick a section of the lake - Alred's (islands), Siebold, Brown's, Honeycomb, wherever, and pick it apart. CT nailed it, too. I might add a floating worm or unweighed fluke for fry-guarders around stumps, too. Lot of possibilities.

Best launch for fishing around Alred's without getting your truck broken into that's not overly crowded on Saturday?

Just south of the bridge on 431 or 69 causeway.

At the Yatch club just before you go over the river?

Across from gville boat mart or behind publix

stop by the tackle trap in boaz, buy a whopper plopper and fish it near spawning flats and grass

I HAVE A 2 DAY TOURNEY HTERE THIS WEEKEND

Had my windows busted out across from boat mart about 3 years ago.

Fished with a guide there on Monday. Typical guide trip for me where you go out and hit all the community spots with baits you're already familiar with. We caught some fish. Best five probably around 14 pounds. Our guy mainly focused on main lake stuff. I don't think they are out there yet. Lake was awesome on the Monday after Easter. Way better than tournament Saturdays......

How familiar is that guide with the lake? I'd be incredibly pissed if my best five only went 14 pounds at this time of the year.

No surprise there. If you want to catch fish call Rex Chambers and set up a June ledge day. Guntersville is tough right now and is running ahead of schedule in regards to spawn and recovering spawners. You should be able to get out right now and run top water over submerged grass. I would throw a bull shad and a spook/gunfish almost exclusively.

I've used several of the guide services up there over the years. They've all been about the same to me. Never had a good day using any of them.

My next trip will be in July/August for a jig trip with Tim Chandler.

Just use a 1/4 OZ trap on the flats. Eelgass is everywhere this year. When you find some keeper fish throw an 8" watermellom augur tail worm or ones with red flake, or lizard. 3'-6'. Some fish have already spawned, others on bed and some moving up. Did catch a few on jigs in deeper water last week. Lots of grass floating made it kinda hard to fish alot of places we wanted to last week.

Red Bug is my go to color from may till September

Went in the cold rain today. Caught 7 keepers. Spent all day in Alred's. I fished flats, humps, points. Scrounger was my most productive bait. They were killing it. The problem was getting it in front of enough of them. First tournament is this coming Saturday.

Every off shore hump I pulled up to today, had hungry bass on it around the 6-8ft range. Caught quite a few keepers in 4hrs on a royal red spot. Moved over to Browns Creek and fished a flat for an hour and hung a real nice one RIGHT at the boat and lost it. They are chewing for sure.

I was surprised by the lack of boats Sunday. I guess the weather scared them off. I did notice that most of my fish (except the two Plopper fish) came from areas close to deeper water. May be the areas I focus on this weekend.

did you fish the rock bank under tge big bridge across from the islands

No. I tried to spend time in new areas of the lake (which isn't too hard for me as I don't fish there often). I avoided the bridges purposely because I've fished them before and I know I can't get to them on Saturday.

Anyone know if the bite might be better up river or mid lake? Lay Lake does this sometimes, where the bite is better on one section of the lake than another.


IDOT, you have any size? My best (5) might have been 12+. Wish I had know you were there, I'd have stopped by.

im not talking about a little bridge im talking about the big bridge that crosses the lake

never fished this spot but its always looked damn good to me

No. I didn't make it there. The wind was blowing out of the NW. Holding a boat on it would have been a challenge.

Saw where the Bass Cat Owners tourney had something like 260 teams and caught only 1,100 +/- fish.

Lot of talk in the last 3-5 years about how the lake is bad, something's wrong, etc. I still believe it's mostly a cycle issue, because the lake runs high-low every 15-20 years. The 1990s were ghastly compared to mid/late 2000s, and IMO we're back into the downturn.

Definitely isn't a Rayburn, Toledo Bend or Chickamauga right now by any stretch.

I was happy with a (5) fish limit. I have always struggled with this lake.

howd you like ghe whopper plopper blow up

is nickajack one of the upstream dams on gville? ive always wanted to fish up that way

60 boats zero'd both days. Buddy of mine was in it. It sucked. He did say that they had zero fish die. Thought that was cool.

Plopper bite was cool, but throwing that thing all morning was a workout.

Beadle, Nickajack is the next lake up from Guntersville and then Chick is above it at Chattabooger. Nickajack dam is just over the state line east of South Pittsburg.

if i ran upriver on guntersville as far as i could go is that nickajack dam

Yes.

ever fished the tailwaters? i wouldnt mind making a trip up there

I haven't. I have a guy in my club that fishes up that way for every tournament. He does it to get away from the crowds. He does pretty well.

Some big smallies up there, or so I've heard.

Didn't have a scale, but a 5ish, 3ish and quite a few shorts. Lost one that was pushing over 6 that hit the spot just as I was lifting it out of the water..bout made me mess my pants

I'll PM you the areas I fished tonight

Report from this Saturday:


WIND TUNNEL and WAVE POOL.


Damn. Not the worst conditions I've ever seen there, but close. Typical TN River, calm in the morning. Just enough to delude you into thinking that everything was gonna be OK for a long run up the river. Then, crank up that South wind driving against that current. BAM! Wave pool.

Tried to stay out of the wind in Alred's. Caught some keepers there, but everyone was in there with us and it was hard to fish. 4 fish @ 10 pounds won our little tourney. Club beside us had 17 win there's.

Better get a Tennessee license. Green jeans gets real serious right through there

is it not reciprocal like pickwick is?

Had to run up to Kentucky Dam Village State Park on Sunday for a meeting.

HOLY CRAP the river is roaring up there. Multiple gates on the dam are open and spilling, and also at Barkley Dam. The downstream below the dam is almost as high as I've ever seen (which was 3-4 years ago, I guess, when we had the even more tremendous flooding rain).

Elk River is ripping pretty good, too.

Austin and I had to run up towards Columbia, tn this weekend. I noticed the elk rolling too!

It was BRUTAL. Again, not the worst I've seen it, but it was pretty damn bad.

We fished guntersville this weekend out of goose pond and waves where washing over the boat on main water