Athens Called to me Today

It has been several months since I have fished the local lake. Despite it being a little early in the year I broke out the float tube, grabbed some crawlers and went to answer the call. I hit several of my "go to spots" with no luck and decided to hit a small cove that always looked good. Found them there.

This was the first sunfish of the year. Nothing spectacular, but the first is always a little special. Probably about 6 inches long and full of fight.



They came slowly and steadily after that. I was using my normal rig of a small unpainted jighead tipped with a piece of crawler. I had to lower it straight down to the bottom and then raise it about 2 inches off the bottom and twitch it really gentle like. The hits were very soft. If it was too high or too close to the bottom the fish got lockjaw. Sort of a precision type of fishing but it paid off with about a dozen nice fish.





This was the big fish of the day. He was just less than 9 inches and pretty stocky.



All fish were released to fight another day. It felt really good to get the tube on the water after a few months. It was a little windy today but not too bad. The tube rode high in the water and the fish were biting. Can't ask for much more than that in a day.

Cheers Y'all.

Nice fish. Looks like some of them are full of eggs! Great post.

Nice post and some fat fish! As always super job.



Side Note: How deep were you catching the fish? Also do waves cause a problem while fishing in a float?

I'd guess I was getting them in 8 or 9 feet of water. Waves don't cause much of a problem because the tube just rides along with them. Think of a leaf floating on the water it just sort of goes with the movement. The issue is wind because you travel by leg power and flippers and wind can exhaust you pretty fast. But I have also used wind to my advantage because if I can get dropped off up wind and have a person waiting with a vehicle down wind I can drift fish and that is really productive. I've done the same thing on creeks and rivers. Get dropped off a couple miles up stream and just go with the flow. The tube doesn't spook fish the way a boat does because it is smaller and there is no engine noise at all.

Float tube fishing if great. Y'all should try it sometime.

Good looking fish. Whats the average size there?

Lots of 8-10 inch sunfish in the lake and enough over 11 to keep it really interesting. Most people fish for bass on it and I'm told it is a great bass lake but I'd rather catch the sunfish. And even though I'm not a bass fisherman I catch a fair number of them while targeting the sunfish. Get some good cats too.

Here is an afternoon's catch last year from Athens. The sunfish are an 8 inch average and the cat went about 5 lbs or so.

Those are some NICE ones. Nice haul!

Man that`s what I call Gittinum! Flags did you ever get around to fishing the 2859 @ Chambers?Shoot me a PM

Nicely done!

Thanks Flags! Seems the fish are in prespawn mode! As for the waves I was wondering about that with all the wind we have been having lately.

Nice fish Flags! Athens is a great fishery! Good job Sir.




Side Note: Have you ever had any close calls with snakes?

About 5" (as far as reporting goes anyhow)
Wait for the full moon next month, get you some live crickets and go check it out.

Oh and Welcome to the forum!

Nice report Flags!!