2010 BassFishin.Com Member Event on Dale Hollow

[nofearengineer]

It's okay....I am sort of torn on this one.

I can't decide what to do when I catch that 8lb Smallie.

Mum's the word, so as not to make anyone sick?

Or post extra big pictures of it, so as to make people who cancelled sick?

hmmm......



Just playing, guys. I'm mostly going to miss the company. I just already booked the room and set up the vacation time, so it would be a problem for me to not go at this point.

[zooker]

Originally Posted by nofearengineer

so as to make people who cancelled sick

no some of us are truly sick..i do have a doctors note if need be..

zooker

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by zooker

no some of us are truly sick..i do have a doctors note if need be..

zooker

Okay, Zook...you are off the hook on this one.

Next year is a must.

[nofearengineer]

To Ron and Adam...

If you guys should be able to somehow see this before you leave Dale Hollow totally beaten, sorry Mark and I were unable (unwilling) to hang around long enough to see you.

To say Dale was a bust would be a bit of an understatement.

As many of you know, Tennessee just experienced some of the worst rain on record. The western part of the state is a complete wreck, and while the eastern portion did not suffer as much damage to roads and what not, the lake was a complete JUNKPILE.

When we arrived on Monday morning, the lake was 8 feet above summer pool, and covered in logs, leaves, plastic soda bottles, and pretty much every other type of debris you can imagine. The "gin clear" water was muddy and green. As a result, fishing was pretty much a futile effort on our part. I had pretty much memorized all of the things to look for; i.e., look for weeds near red clay of black shale banks...yada, yada, yada, but it was all for naught.

Problem was...there were no banks...the whole lake is nothing but submerged timber, so to a guy who has no experience with the lake, it all looks just about the same. I even made a run down the lake to the dam, and it was all even worse the farther down we went. So even trolling was out of the question. You couldn't keep a lure in the water longer than a minute or two before you'd see a mass of sticks and leaves creep down your downrigger line on the sonar, and then invariably a couple minutes later, the lure would snap free, and you'd have a bunch of muck to clear.

Long story short, those who skipped Dale made a lucky choice. I fished 3 days in 90 degree, bluebird skies, with nothing more than 3 bites to show for it (oh yeah, and an awesome semi-sunburn). I even did some night fishing, but to no avail. I tried just about every fishing technique I know...again no luck. It got to be just too depressing, so I came home.

It was still fun to see a new lake though. In the mornings and evenings, when it wasn't so blasted hot, it was really pretty (if you kind of squinted so you wouldn't see the water). Watching the huge Gar cruise around the boat was pretty cool. I plan on going back next Spring when it's back to normal.

Again, sorry, Ron and Adam...I hope you have better luck than I did.