Fort Loudoun Reservoir, Before and after

foreign so well we here it's not too windy in this cove but i'm sure when i get out into the main big water area it's going to be i'm just letting the wind push me right now tag blasted duck hunters i think it's world war three out here i've been dragging baits for about a half mile out of this creek so far they got locked jaw or they're not here this is a huge creek system and i'm going to cover the whole thing i personally don't believe there's many blue cat left in fort loudoun but i'm going to find the ones that's [Applause] here so when i done this in watts bar long as i got in the right water depth i caught plenty of fish i'm in fort loudoun i've been dragging baits for an hour and a half i probably covered close to two miles of this creek and i ain't caught the first fish this is ridiculous another half a mile and ain't caught jack squat i was worried about not having enough bait today but this is fort loudoun if you've got one gizzard shad you've got enough bait to fish fort loudon all day this is ridiculous i may have to pull anchor and go down to watch bar just catch fish there ain't too many in here no more i mean covering this much distance even if you can't find out where they're actually holding you think you'd accidentally come across one that's coming or going i've been drifting for two hours without a nibble probably covered about 25 miles when it's this bad i really don't know what else to do but eat a sandwich it's bad this is bad and i guarantee you i could pull anchor go right down the watch bar do the same thing and catch 20 fish all right y'all i've been out here for four days straight dragging these baits and i ain't caught a nibble i'm working my way out now into the main channel getting into a lot deeper water i don't think it matters in fort loudoun i don't think it matters where you go you think by luck of the draw dragging them hooks across the bottom of this reservoir i'd accidentally snag one it's windy and it's cold all right people it's two weeks later and i'm still out here dragging baits and i ain't caught the first nibble i've now worked my way out into the main river channel surely my trolling motor battery has got to be about dead i don't care if i fish shallow or deep this is fort loudoun so i'm not real excited about it all i can do is keep going if i keep working my way south i can go through the lock and get on the watch bar side to actually catch a fish they've still got fish in watts park i'm getting a little bit of light rain going on and it's 40 degrees with wind i'm out here in 60 foot of water and i can't buy a bite because this is fort loudoun dragging right on the outside uh ledge going right around the bend right where a creek dumps out now if there was fish in this reservoir i would be catching them right here problem is there ain't no fish anywhere else this would be a good place to fish anywhere else i would have hooked one by accident i would have snagged it by now all right people it's almost spring and i'm still out here dragging baits not the first bite it's fort loudoun i come up in this little creek right here because i just flat out didn't know what else to do i've done covered everything else and not a bite here in knoxville there's more catfishermen than there is actual catfish so if guys ain't like me and let their fish go this is what happens see that piece of bait i've been dragging it in fort loudon for four hours i'm gonna leave it on the hook i won't be leaving that one on the hook because i just hung it up now just for experimental purposes the same day with a few hours left of daylight we're gonna go to watch bar and i guarantee you doing the same thing i'm doing on that same piece of bait i pulled out of the water i catch a fish there in about 15 minutes let's go to watchbar all right people it's about an hour later i'm down here on watts bar my original theory was fish should be shallow well that only applies if there's fish in the water where you're fishing so now i'm down here to a less pressured reservoir watts bar same river same day same situation uh same bait and the only difference is is i'm going to catch fish here because there's some deck blasted fish in the water i'm going to pull right out of this cove where i launched it and then there's another cove over in the back i'm going to pull back in there also we're just going to work this thing this bait here is the same bait i used for four hours over on fort loudoun without a nibble still windy but the wind is dying down from earlier it's supposed to be calming down the later it gets my trolling motor probably don't have much left in it after all that at fort loudoun i went for miles over there we'll see how long it takes to catch a fish over here i fished over there for four hours what time is it the time is 3 15 pm 3 15 pm i'm hung up already you got to be kidding me i just tied that thing man there it goes up i believe that was a bite on the right rod we ain't been here five minutes i went four hours without a bite over in fort loudoun there's a bite fish on uh he come off either way that's two bites already i can still see the boat ramp nothing landed yet 14 minutes and already had two bites i was in fort loudoun four hours didn't get jack squat same situation same river same day same bait the only difference is there's still some fish in the water down here that's a bite it's bite number three i'd say we'll get hooked up for long bite number four there's a small bite but hey that's four bites and i can still see the boat ramp bite number five and i can still see the boat ramp same day fishing the same way only downstream where there's some actual dag-blasted fish there's a bite there's a bite there's a bite and that's on the old bait the old bait that i fished four hours at fort loudoun with and i got a fish on that bait here so so well there it is right there people and i even got that old wore out piece of bait back i hope this comes loose i hope i don't have to break it off there it goes see i didn't all of a sudden become a bad fisherman what happened is fort loudoun became a bad place to fish and i can still see the boat ramp what time is it the time is 3 35 pm it took 20 minutes to get the first fish here and i fished fort loudoun four hours without jack doodley squat now if i'd been fishing over here four hours what would i have caught i knew to come here and every time i fish fort loudoun i say i gotta quit fishing this place but it's what's close to my house so i keep going back for more punishment there was a time back in the 90s i had a little 14-foot starcraft riveted boat it used to leak so bad i kept a bucket in the boat and i would just bucket the water out while i was fishing i boated 72 cats in a few hours up in downtown knoxville back in the 90s on fort loudoun at one time it was a great place to fish fishing just like dieter melhorn dragging these baits only i'm not using 15 rods i'm only using two oh there's a fish well he ain't much but i'm back here in like three foot of water i'll fix it after turning around now i'm at the end of this cove hey it's better than fort loudoun couldn't buy a bite there four hours oh oh oh i'm only in about three foot of water here like i say i knew their fish would be fish shallow you just got to get out of fort loudoun can't buy a bite over in fort loudoun come on up here get up get up get up get up that's two back here in super shallow three total in less than an hour that's telling me the fishing on fort loudoun is sour i believe that little fish is on there yeah he's swimming towards the boat i know he's on there boy that's a skinny old thing what sure if he was still on or not i had to finish my water first either way i believe that's four fish same exact day same exact way i couldn't get a bite in fort loudoun after being there for four hours covering about four miles of river i knew some guys that worked at swaggerty's back in the 90s they caught 20 fish in one night that weighed over 40 pounds in fort loudoun this was back in the 1990s in the late 90s in fisherman magazine rated fort loudoun one of the top 10 places in the country to catch a world record catfish i guarantee if they rated it now it would be in the top 10 worst lakes in the country fishing pressure is a real thing people and it has a big effect on your reservoirs the most people live on fort loudoun it also got a lot of publicity over the years catfishing became popular people that never fished in their life started fishing for catfish that gave it even more pressure there we go better than fort loudoun watts bar is a declining fishery as well it was about 10 years ago when all the local guys made the transition from fort loudoun to watts bar when i first started fishing watts bar off the bank the cove that i launched my boat out of i used to bank fish this time of year in the winter it was always a guaranteed fish which is why i would drive 60 plus miles just to come here the average size of fish that i would catch sitting off the bank went between 15 and 30 pounds you got a lot of 20 25 pound fish out of here on the on the norm and getting 30 pounders were fairly easy now 10 years later the average size fish you get in here this time of year is between 2 and 15 pounds watts bar is what fort loudoun was a few years ago i knew when i came over here i would catch fish had nothing to do with barometric pressure the moon you just can't catch fish hardly out of fort loudoun no more this has been going on for nine months years ago i watched a guy he custom made rods he was on the channel 10 news fishing watch bar he took one of the news guys with him out on his boat said i'm going to catch a 60 pounder today he did because 60 pounders were easy to catch 20 years ago on watts bar reservoir now if you fish watch bar reservoir all year long and you get a 60 pounder you're doing pretty good easing my way back to the ramp i don't like uh trying to get the boat on the trailer in this wind and this ramp isn't lit up very well so i spent just a little bit of time here and caught five fish i spent most of my day dragging baits for miles on fort loudoun without a single nibble watts bar will eventually be the same way typically i had no trouble catching big fish in the fall off the bank in fort loudoun this year when fall came in my boat the biggest fish i got was about 35 pounds most of the time the trip was a bust which is why i went to melton hill reservoir or telico or watts bar to get all my best fish for my fall videos my biggest fish this year came from nikki jack a good hundred and something miles from here lots of people are fishing nikki jack now because they're feeling the pressure of these two areas either way i'll keep coming out here but i've been fishing these reservoirs for 20 something years and i'm gonna tell you that fishing pressure is real there's still big fish somewhere out here there's still a big fish somewhere in fort loudoun but you're going to work and you're going to work hard for them nowadays years ago it was no problem to catch a 30-pounder off the bank in fort loudoun you could do it up the river or down the river now if you catch a 30 pounder in fort loudoun you've had a good day guys are winning fish tournaments in fort loudoun with a 20 pound fish nowadays years ago you could catch 10 fish over 40 pounds i was catfishing long before catfishing was cool and i've seen what once was and what is now no matter how bad it gets i'll come out here anyhow this is a video there was fish in the video that makes it a fishing video this is catfish dave with another one signing out

Channel: Catfish Dave

Views: 36,519

Rating: 4.8802137 out of 5

Keywords: Fishing, Catfish, Blue Catfish, Giizzard Shad, Fort Loudoun Reservoir, Watts Bar Reservoir, Dragging Baits For Catfish

Id: YQqVcHEMElw

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021