Inland Lake

I want to go check out Inland Lake up in Blount county. I've researched pretty much everything the inter webs has to offer, including what FurFlying had to say a while back. Just looking for some updated info from within the past few years.

Mainly I would love to target Stripe and Crappie. I would love to get my 3 boys into a mess of Crappie some time this spring, so I'm open to suggestions.

I used to fish Inland 30 plus years ago. I’ve caught a lot of big bass drifting spot tail minnows.

Very deep water clear to about 50 ft or better ... have caught alot of bass and stripe around the bluff

I hate to be a buzzkill but you will probably be disappointed. We have caught a few crappie. You might be alot better at it and slaughter them but i would bet against you. There are good stripers in there. We have also caught a few. Also hard to catch. I saw one trying to eat a 2lb gizzard shad it killed once that i would guess weighed between 35-40lb. It was huge and about 10ft from my boat for a few minutes. It couldnt get the whole gizzard shad in its mouth. Inland is a really hard lake to fish. If you fish smith with any success, you might catch right on though. We mostly fish for spots up there. The spots up there are about as good to eat as a crappie. Some people troll for the stripers. They do school pretty good some times of year. The boat launch at the dam was closed a few months ago. Theres another boat launch at the other end of the lake, boatlanding rd. Good luck.

Thanks gents. Always fun to check out a new place with the boys, even if it doesn't pan out.

Mauser when we fish up there, we fish shakeyheads on chunky rock banks. I didnt mean to discourage you. You can catch fish there, its no guntersville though. It is a beautiful place with little traffic most if the time

Thanks! You definitely didn't discourage me. I'm still trying to get the hang of down rigging, so even if it's just time out on the water learning it will be a win.

If you want the stripers go all the way to the upper end on flats in the summer and if you catch a alligator cut the line. Ain't got no crappie info. Have caught a ton of yellow perch on it

If you catch some 1lb spots, take them home and eat them. Youll be glad you did.

I love a mess of 1# spots

I lived close to it and fished it regularly for quite a while. The running joke was "there are only two fish in Inland and I caught both of them last time I was up there". I generally came home with two fish but I never came home with more than 10. Difficult to fish may be a slight understatement.

Use the lightest of everything you can. Terminal tackle/line/etc.

Drop minnows into tree tops and rocks for best success for bass and crappie. Sight fishing is doable as it's clear. Really clear.

The stripe will be running into the two creeks that feed it right now so get up them as far as you can and get out of the boat. Being in the boat will spook them. You can tell when they're coming as the rest of the fish will jump out of the water. Stripe are not real picky about what type of bait but everything needs to be downsized from what you would normally think would work. I have used stuff about normal bass size for the stripe with some success (by comparison, I use a 6" bait as a minimum most other places). You will need to hide from them like you would creek trout. During the summer they gang up in deep water and you can find them with electronics. They can be difficult to get to bite in the summer when it's real hot. A light over the side at night may be needed.

There are some alligators but they're very rarely seen. I never saw one in ten years up there.

There is a fishable population of yellow perch and they are very good to eat if you keep fish. They school like crappie so you can catch a good bit if you can find them.

It is 7 miles from end to end and absolutely gorgeous. Very few places will equal the natural splendor of that little lake.

If you didn't see no alligator in inland you was fishing with your eyes closed

Yellow perch like the "up north" hard water (ice) fishing Yellow Perch? I've heard good things about them as table fare. Thanks for the advice.

How do you go about finding and catching yellow perch in inland lake? Weve brought some home from guntersville and put them in a pond. Hoping theyll reproduce. The boy catches one now and then so they are still alive, one of them anyhow. I have no idea if theyve reproduced. I would like to be able to catch them at inland. There used to be rainbow trout in there, should still be. Ive also heard old timers talk about smallmouth and walleye being in there at one time.

Ever time we ever got on them we was crappie fishing. or on the bluff walls between box creek and the boat landing road launch in the s curve

Yes - same fish. Find them in schools that are spread out rather than stacked up on electronics. Before electronics, we just moved in ever larger circles when we caught one to try and stay on them. Catch them the same way as crappie. They will hit other things though - I've caught them on redworms and wigglers. Minnows work best for the perch. They will be in the same areas as the bream sometimes (rare) is how I caught them on worms.

I never targeted the perch so not helpful on finding them - I just caught them while fishing for other stuff and managed to stay on the school for a while here and there. I've never caught a smalley, any of the jacks or a trout. I've also not ever known of a verified catch of any of them by anyone else. Some of the old timers say they were in there in the past and some say that's a load of hooey. I have no idea but I know I didn't see anyone with any some twenty years ago.

Aim to head up there tomorrow to do a little scoutin'. Will report back.

Went up this morning, tough bite. Going to be a hard one to figure out. I'll be back though.

I am certain that the dcnr put smallmouth in Yates Lake long ago; like maybe the 70s or 80s. It seems likely that they would have put them into Inland at the same time, so it probably isn't a myth. I guess that some of the stocked fish survived, but they must not have reproduced.

DCNR would have records of it if anyone wanted to check. It would be a good one for smallies to be stocked in.

The worst thing we can do is stock fish where they don't belong. We've screwed up so many fisheries that way. Smallmouth should not be placed in the Mobile River Basin.

The state put walleye in a local watershed then told us we could not keep them. Ill catch 1 or 2 every trip around 1 to 3#. I wish they had stocked small mouth instead, at least we could eat them.