FLW Tour #5
Fort Loudon/Tellico Lakes Knoxville, TN
Water Temp: 83
Post-Spawn


Coming into this tournament I was prepared for some poor fishing. Last year at this lake, I think I came in 15th weighing in only 5 fish. It took about 11 hours to drive to the lake, which is just south of Knoxville, TN. I arrived at the house to find all the good beds had been claimed. Suggs and I had to sleep in a bunk bed. He called the bottom bunk before he even arrived at the house. Sucker! The bottom bunk had about 16" of space; it was like sleeping on the floor under a regular bed. I had to meet Gabe at the boat launch at 5:30am, so I tried to get a good night sleep. Gabe had heard that the fishing on Tellico was terrible this time of year, so we were going to focus on Loudon. We started out trying to locate fish out deep. We searched the open water for drop-offs and ledges that the fish might be holding on. Usually you can locate where they are by first finding the bait, but this lake had bait everywhere. We practiced most of the day out deep without a keeper bite. Gabe was starting to get frustrated and I interjected that there are always some fish shallow. We went shallow to fish some docks and caught a few keepers almost immediately. I was skipping a skinny dipper way up under the docks and dragging out some good largemouth. We did that for the rest of the afternoon, catching some decent keepers. We got off the water at about 7:30; it was a long day!