Thread: Wilson Advice

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  1. #1
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    Wilson Advice

    A group (4) of us have a house rented to fish Wilson 4/7 through 4/11. We usually do G’villenor KY lake for our spring trip but are trying something new to all of us this year. Any recommendations on what’s happening/where to go/what to throw would be appreciated.

    Thanks in advance!!
    jim

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    #2
    I struggled the last week of March. I’m not sure if they all locked in bed at once or what but I couldn’t find them the day I fished. I did manage a 4 lb spot which is something I’ve never done on Wilson before. The stain is still too bad to see any beds though. Wilson is a small lake with good access so the whole lake is essentially a “community hole”. With the full moon approaching on the 19th you could target the last wave of prespawn fish and with the warm temps we’ve had there may already be some post spawn fish just starting to group up. This doesn’t help much as these are huge areas but many tourneys this time of year are won from up in shoal creek, in donnegin (map will call this mckiernan creek), and the tailrace below wheeler. You can have some epic days on Wilson but very few are consistent on that lake. Honestly to me it fishes more like smith than like the other TVA lakes but that’s probably just because I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. They have started the pull up to summer pool and will be up about 18-24” over where it was last week so I would anticipate at least some fun to be had shallow for that reason. Sometimes the mouth of town creek can be a good place to quickly develop a pattern as it has a mixture of shallow flats, shallow cover, and offshore ledges resembled typically tva impoundments in very close proximity to one another. Because of the difficulty in remaining consistent on that small lake specifics will be tough to get out of anyone.

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    #3
    Curious also, going down to Muscle Shoals 4/12-14th to play 36 holes of golf Saturday. Staying at an Airbnb on the river, wondering if I need to bring the boat down to fish Sunday morning.

  4. Member
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    #4
    Thanks for the info Jtreed. “Struggled” isn’t what we wanted to hear but we’ve been there before. I didn’t realize Wilson had a winter pool, but looked and see TVA starts filling it the 1st of April. With all the rain we’ve had I’d have thought it would’ve been near summer pool already.

    Jim

  5. Member Ballerlb24's Avatar
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    #5
    I went Monday and caught about 30 large mouth. All on jigs. 1/2 way up creeks in 4-10ft of water.
    2021 Nitro Z21/300 4 stroke

  6. Member mrlawler1's Avatar
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    #6
    Wilson stays pretty consistent year round...I'm a jig guy myself, but Wilsons best and most consistent area is up below the dam...
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  7. Member
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    #7
    Quote Originally Posted by SkeeterXRi View Post
    Thanks for the info Jtreed. “Struggled” isn’t what we wanted to hear but we’ve been there before. I didn’t realize Wilson had a winter pool, but looked and see TVA starts filling it the 1st of April. With all the rain we’ve had I’d have thought it would’ve been near summer pool already.

    Jim
    I may have just had them pegged wrong on the 27th of March. We caught small fish in the 9-11” range in those areas but the only female fish with any size to them (we had two at 4+ lbs) were way back and way shallow. In fact those were the only 2 measuring fish we caught that day. We may not have stuck with the mid creek pattern long enough but were tired of picking through the small fish so we changed it up. May have been a mistake. We only fished about 4.5 hours.

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    #8
    Sorry I meant to reply to Baller’s comment but you get the idea.

  9. Member
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    #9
    I meant to update this earlier but work got in the way. Here's what's probably a way-too-long and way-too-late recap of our trip.

    We drove over on Sunday morning from GA in a steady rain and launched just below Wheeler dam. Not knowing much of anything about it, we drove past the big group of what looked like crazy people in the tailwaters to the north side and started on the rock reef above Bluewater creek. Two twitches into the first cast with a pointer and the rod loaded up. I tried to get it to shake loose but a 15-16" hybrid had a face full of hooks. We said a silent prayer that we wouldn't be jinxed for the rest of the day and carried on. We moved down the reef and into Bluewater Creek throwing jerkbaits, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and plastics with several short fish and few keeper largemouth. After working 1/2 way into it, we shifted gears and headed south to whatever creek is on the south side of the lake (my memory banks are apparently overloaded). The water was much dirtier but we still managed a few, the big fish of the day came off some of the old weed stems near the creek channel on a 7" soft swimbait.

    The other half of the group drove down on Saturday and launched out of Shoal creek. They said they had good numbers (30?) of fish near the pad stems on 4-5" boot-tails and chatter baits, but they didn't take any pictures so I'm not convinced it really happened.

    Day two had a partner swap and all of us launched midlake on the south side (don't remember the park name). The weather was overcast and rainy. We started near the ramp throwing "junk" around the seawalls, riprap, and docks and had several fish in the first hundred yards or so but no size to them. We then cranked the big motor and went looking, eventually ending up in Shoal creek for a few hours and then heading back to the south side of the lake and fishing blowdowns in the pockets with jigs and brushhogs. Again we didn't really kill them, but probably ended the day with ~20 largemouth and a few spots and smallmouth. The biggest fish of the day were again largemouth but no monsters, maybe 4-1/2ish. The other boat of the group said they struggled but "caught a few".

    Day three had my original partner back in my boat and we launched at midlake again. He'd really been having a hard time catching so we went down the 200 yard stretch of docks again and he put a keeper in the boat. We then headed over to Shoal creek and spent most of the day doing different things. I think we went about five hours without a bite but things finally changed in the afternoon and we had a few decent largemouth SHALLOW in the back of one of the feeder creeks on chatterbaits. We headed toward the back of the creek and has several more spots and largemouth on jerkbaits around blowdowns near the creek channel. We then pocket-hopped back down to the main lake and the bite consistently improved on jigs and plastics. We ended the day with probably twelve fish, but nothing over 3-1/2 or so. The other boat didn't get out because the driver had the cooties.

    Day four (Wednesday) was clear and calm. We swapped partners again and headed out to look at other stuff. We started in a big pocket on the north side and had several largemouth, then worked our way upstream back to the big creek on the south side just below the dam (still don't remember the name); but it was way muddier than it had been on Sunday. We stayed out near the mouth and fished the weed stems and ledges, catching a few more on plastics and jigs. I wanted to spend some time in the tailrace I'd heard about and after watching for a while we got in line and tried it, unsuccessfully. After that we piddled in Bluewater Creek a little more but didn't like the water color there either, so headed back downstream just junk fishing in the main lake pockets. My partner for the day (aka Dad) had several more deadsticking black and blue jigs. He definitely "won" for both size and numbers for the day.

    We didn't fish Thursday because of the long drives home. Everybody enjoyed the lake and put it on the "go back to" list. Everybody felt we were probably a week or two early for the big numbers (or maybe a week late). We only saw one bed the entire time we were there and most of the fish we caught were coming out of 5-10' of water. Jigs, 4-5" soft swimbaits, and t-rigged plastics seemed to produce the most for us, but again it was all new to us so we were probably doing it wrong.

    Thanks for all of those that provided advice and let me know if you're coming to north GA. I'll give you what advice I can, but it'll probably be wrong so don't put a lot of faith in it.

    jim

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    #10

  11. Member
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    #11
    Nice report Skeeter