TCBFT Watts Bar Lake

 

 

The fourth qualifier of the 2010 Tennessee Collegiate Bass Fishing Trail on Watts Bar Lake took place on Saturday, May 8th. Watts Bar Lake is a section of the Tennessee River that lies between Chickamauga Lake near Chattanooga, TN and Fort Loudon Lake near Knoxville, TN. Like the last qualifying TCBFT event on Nickajack, Watts Bar offers anglers a good chance of catching largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass on any cast. The majority of participants guessed that the winning weight would be somewhere in the 15-18 pound range in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

 

26 collegiate anglers representing 5 different schools blasted off from the Watts Bar Dam Ramp near Spring City, TN to very windy and cloudy conditions with air temperatures in the low 60s. As in any TCBFT event, anglers have the choice to lock up or down and three out of the thirteen boats in the field decided to lock down to Chickamauga. About an hour after blast-off the clouds lifted but the wind continued to blow and temperatures didn't get above 75 all day. At 3 PM, anglers returned to the ramp to weigh in and talk about the ones that got away. Taylor Bolton and Casey Murray, representing the host school UT-Chattanooga, claimed first place with five fish limit weighing 14.93 lbs! Their limit was anchored by a 5.34 lb largemouth. Taylor and Casey were one of the three boats that decided to lock down and fish Chickamauga Lake. UT-Knoxville's Travis McFalls and Ryan Beeler finished in 2nd with a limit of keepers weighing 12.09 lbs. Their bag included four largemouth and a nice 18" smallmouth. In third place were Seth Davis and Ryan Maddux who fish for Tennessee Tech University. They brought in five fish tipping the scales at 10.73 lbs. Seth and Ryan also locked down and caught their fish on Chickamauga Lake. UT-Chattanooga's Jimmy Reynolds brought in the big bass of the tournament, a largemouth weighing 6.19 pounds winning him a new Joe Burn's Custom Rod. All in all thirty-four keepers were brought to the scales weighing a total of 79.86 lbs with all but one bass being released alive.

 

Complete tournament results and pictures can be found at: http://utcbassfishing.com/Results.html.

 

 

 

"Although the tournament blasted off on Watts Bar Lake, we elected to lock through to Chickamauga Lake. Casey and I practiced on Thursday & Friday on Chickamauga so we felt confident that we could catch our limit and have a decent sack if we locked through. It was the first time in a lock for both of us so that was a pretty cool experience. After locking, we ran a pretty good ways down Chickamauga and within minutes of putting the trolling motor down had a 5.3 largemouth in the boat followed by a 2.5 pounder. We fished extremely shallow throwing mainly plastic lizards and worms to catch our limit," stated Taylor Bolton.

 

 

"The wind was howling all day long, but we used it to our advantage. We started out by fishing main lake shallow points with spinnerbaits, swim baits, and jerkbaits. Travis caught an 18" smallmouth in the first hour so that was a good start to the day. We found that many of the fish were up on shallows, feeding on spawning shad. Later on in the afternoon, the fish had moved to just off the side of the points and we used Pure Poison football-head jigs and C-rigs to catch our other keepers," explained Ryan Beeler.

 

 

"We locked through to Chickamauga hoping for some big bites flipping soft plastics and jigs. We caught one keeper spot right off the bat, but managed to only flip up 4 keeper largemouth to round out our limit. The bite seemed to be tougher than the past few days since the water went down, but we stuck with the game plan and scrapped up what we could," said Seth Davis

 

 

The UTC Bass Anglers would like to especially thank our corporate sponsors: Triton, Mercury, MoonPie, Coca Cola, Joe's Custom Rods (Joe Burns of Cleveland, TN), Lowrance, Industrial Boiler & Mechanical, Equalizer Scales, Choo Choo Lures, Stan Sloan's Zorro Baits, Secret Weapon Lures, Vicious Fishing, Tackle Warehouse, Rejuvenade, Berkley, Scenic City Fishing Charters, Tony Sanders Outdoors, Nichols Marine, Sadler Signs & Awards, Incor Design & Promotions, Boat Seat Buddy, Chattanooga Fish-N-Fun, Chattanooga Fishing Forum, Chattanooga Bass Association, Chattanoogan, and Chattanooga Times Free Press.

 

All of the anglers enjoyed chocolate, peanut-butter, and mint flavored MoonPies at the weigh-in as well as Coca Cola products like Coke, Sprite, Powerade, Dasani water, and Minute Maid juices. The UTC Bass Anglers would like to personally thank Joe Burns of Joe's Custom Rods for donating a custom rod as the prize for big bass. Even though the wind and post-spawn conditions were tough, eleven out of thirteen boats caught keepers and all participants caught small fish. We'd like to remind everyone that our TCBFT Championship will take place on Thursday and Friday June 10 and 11th on Chickamauga Lake in Hixson, TN. More information on that event as well as the 2010 Tennessee Collegiate Bass Fishing Trail hosted by the UT-Chattanooga Mocs Bass Anglers can be found on their website, www.utcbassfishing.com.

 

Tournament Director and Club President, Alex Craw, also wants everyone to know that after accounting for the one drop tournament, there are 14 anglers from three different schools still in contention for the Angler of the Year Award going into the TCBFT Championship. The angler(s) who finishes first in the 2010 TCBFT will not only be awarded with a trophy, prizes, and bragging rights - but they can also select a lake or river in Tennessee that the TCBFT will fish as a qualifying event in 2011! UT-Chattanooga's Jimmy Reynolds is in the points lead with 298, followed by a tie for second between Tennessee Tech's Seth Davis and UTC's Daniel Geren with 296 points. Rounding out the top five is a four way tie for fourth between UTC's Taylor Massingill & Alex Craw and MTSU's Nolen Spencer & Tyler Barnes each with 293 points. Points will double during the two-day TCBFT Championship with 1st place receiving 200 pts, 2nd place 198 pts, and so on. To encourage participation in the TCBFT Championship event, Tournament Directors Alex Craw and Taylor Massingill have decided to make this an open tournament. This means any college can send an unlimited amount of boats to their two-day championship on Chickamauga Lake in Hixson, TN on June 10-11. The TCBFT Championship will guarantee $1,500 for the first place finishers, regardless if they participated in the first four qualifying tournaments! Please visit www.utcbassfishing.com  or email utcbassfishing@gmail.com  if you have any questions regarding the TCBFT Championship event.