We fished in a tournament on July 11 out of the Loudon/Tellico canal ramp from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm. Well, we had to quit early because of a brand new starter that ended up being bad. Anyway, we were able to fish until about 11:00 am. We focused on the areas near Lenoir City Park and Concord boat ramp.
There were huge schools of fish feeding on top early in the morning until about 9:00am. It was really easy to catch them, but getting keepers was a different story. They were smokin' any color fluke we threw at them! White Bass, largemouth, and smallmouth. I was looking the other way on one cast and my partner said the biggest smallmouth he'd ever seen rolled on my fluke right behind the boat. He said judging by the size of it's head, it would have been around 7 pounds. I'm glad I didn't see it or I would have been sick! These fish were anywhere between 10 and 40 feet deep.
Poppers were working well in the morning. Any brand and just about any color have been working. Brandon caught some nice smallmouth around 16 1/2 inches, but just short of keeping. Many fish were smacking at it, but just wouldn't take it well enough for a hookset. These fish were close to the bank and the boat was in 25 feet.
Perhaps the most action we saw was on a Zoom worm. At one spot, I caught 8 fish in 8 casts. I probably ended up with about 15 fish on the worm in about a half hour of fishing. The best colors for me were watermelon seed, junebug, and green pumpkin. I had them rigged on a 3/16 oz Spot Remover jighead. These fish were suspended around 15 feet deep over 30 feet of water. You wouldn't feel the bite, but you could tell one had it when the line went limp.
The day started out partly cloudy and ended up being bright, sunny, and hot.
Good luck! Catch the big ones and watch out for other boats!
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