If you were to ask any northern muskie angler what his or her favorite muskie fishing destinations are, the waterways of Northwestern Ontario, North central Minnesota, the clusters of lakes in Northern Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes are the likely unanimous choices. Two of these regions are undoubtedly mine. For anglers looking to escape the winter cabin fever and ditch the ice for more reasonable climates, word class muskie fishing can be sought south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the underfished, flourishing waterways and river systems of Tennessee.
I was granted my diplomatic immunity to TN.
Last week, I took the week off and had the pleasure of driving myself 550 miles south to finally meet and fish with a long time online acquaintance, friend and muskie fishing guide, Cory Allen, of Tennessee’s Stone’s Throw Adventures. I met Cory through a mutual musky friend of ours during the summer of 2012 and from there grew a friendship of many common interests comprised of big game fishing, outdoor writing, and creative collaborations for various publications including my own. It wasn’t until receiving last autumn’s invitation to fish Tennessee’s Melton Hill reservoir with him where I grew intrigued of some southern comfort and opportunity to catch one of those 50 inch beasts Allen and Melton Hill is known for today.
For anglers who are unfamiliar to southern fisheries, muskies are indeed native to some rivers and streams in Tennessee. Hard to believe, but they are riverine oriented fish and made their way south from the Ohio River valley. Their existing populations have have been stocked and fisheries rehabilitated with varying degrees of success. The hotbed of southern muskies has always been the famous Cave Run Reservoir of Northeast Kentucky. However, based entirely upon Allen’s success with clients and the number of 50 inch trophies boated and released in 2013, I’d have to think otherwise, as this venue gives The Cave a run for its money… and this may even include some famous northern muskie waters many of us fish.
Melton Hill, a 6,000 acre widened basin of the Clinch River is a 57 mile long highland reservoir whose water levels are controlled by the Norris Lake and Melton Hill Dams. The reservoir situated in between is a deep, clear, cool water environment that allows ideal dissolved oxygen levels and cool water temperatures to rear a stocked trout fishery, and a year-round musky fishery whose population is sustained through annual stocking and protected by a strict 50 inch size limit. What makes Melton Hill a unique fishery is that the warm water outflow of the Bull Run Steam Plant allows for productive multi species winter fishing in the pools downstream. Despite its daily operations, the warm water discharge does not impact summertime water temperatures, and neither does the reservoir establish a summer thermocline. It’s always a cool water fishery from top to bottom of the water column, thus allowing muskies to grow big and retain their heavy weights, and feed heavily on the smorgasbord of rich forage species consisting of stocked trout, redhorse, suckers, quillbacks, small buffalo fish, and threadfin and gizzard shad.
Before heading south, I knew this trip wouldn’t be a home run. Melton Hill isn’t a numbers lake by any means. It is purely trophy water with a musky fishery of moderate to medium population density with most specimens at 45 inches or greater. Those 10 to 20 fish follow days of the north I am accustomed to would not be happening. But whatever few fish we’d raise to boatside had a far greater probability of striking and being caught. Despite these odds, it felt great to escape from the cold, work on my spring training tan, and cast to open water. Big fish were the plan. I told Cory not to treat me as a client. Lets just fish, learn from another, enjoy one’s company, and have fun.
During our 4 and a half days of fishing, nature’s playbook indicated that muskies would be in their pre-spawn and spawning locations of the lake based on the 50 to 55 degree water temperatures registered. These areas included creek mouth staging areas, as well as deep into the back ends of coves and spawning bays, and even small ditches. Allen and I focused primarily on these lake locations as the week prior he and clients were locating and hooking into 50 inch fish. In order to stalk the shallows and creek outlets, downsized presentations such as loud rattlebaits, chatterbaits with paddle tail swimbait trailers, and small jerkbaits were the ideal players fished with a combination of 50 pound Cortland Masterbraid on our flipping sticks with high speed baitcasting reels, or 30 pound Cortland Masterbraid with Allen’s Tiger Wire 49-strand stainless leaders. All fished with 7 and a half foot medium heavy action spinning rods and reels.
These bite-size musky tactics have been popularized on many of my Northwoods waters, and Allen has been able to showcase their early season productivity on his southern waters within the pages of In-Fisherman Magazine.
Fishing these skinny water locations, Allen has hooked the biggest fish of his life on a 5 inch Rapala X-Rap. His other favorite early season musky baits also include 7 inch Senkos rigged weightless, and 7 inch Zoom Super Flukes on a 7/0 wide gap hook. According to him, they appeal to big muskies.
Unfortunately, these downsized presentations failed to register any fish for us because muskies had not yet moved into these coves and back bays. Was it time for them to begin spawning? Yes. But why fish weren’t being located or sighted we don’t know. The only reasoning we had could be due to drawdown as well as post-frontal conditions which for sure discombobulated the fish. We did spook few fish in the shallows but they were uninterested and nowhere close in numbers they should have been at in these areas. The only interested fish we enticed in the shallows was lost immediately. My wire leader was unknotted by a large fish that broke off the chatterbait and paddle trailer….. that was a first for me. We didn’t get a visual of the fish because it felt like massive razors sliced through based on the rapid few taps I felt with the rod. After both of us being analytical over the event several hours afterwards, we both speculate that it was a giant sunning herself in the chocolatey-milk shallows that was stimulated to strike the Strike King Poison chatterbait.
Besides stalking the shallows with our stealth mode combat tactics, trolling was a secondary option for catching fish. Melton Hill possesses depth, clear water, rock and some submerged wood cover within its coves and alongside deep channel edges. Because of its little cover, lack of vegetation, and minimal musky habitat along its banks, muskies tend to suspend off shore where there is a baitfish presence, or be drawn to the lake’s topographical features and patrol along the lake’s bottom. Trolling with crankbaits and powering the bottom is another of his lethal presentations for success and was done quite a bit in staging areas outside of creek mouths and along the deep edges of channels.
Trolling locations during spring are generally associated with creek mouths and the deepest sections of their arms. This was one such location where trolling was employed.
Throughout much of 2013, Allen utilized a system allowing the reciprocation for trolling and casting and made it popular in print with In-Fisherman and on the web at Fishing-Headquarters. It boated many muskies for his clients and I had the opportunity to try trolling for the first time ever. What allows him to utilize both techniques is through outfitting his 17 foot Tuffy Esox to accommodate both methods. With his Minn Kota Terrova iPilot up at his casting deck where I fished from, and a Yamaha 70 horse tiller on the transom where he always stands back and fishes from, he’s able to stand from the stern and run multiple single line trolling passes at speeds of 1 to 3 miles per hour, working deep topography as well as the numerous 12 to 30 foot deep breaklines Melton Hill possesses. If he ever locates something unique on his flasher whether it’s a school of baitfish or underwater structure likely containing fish, he kills the outboard and controls the Terrova with remote, dissecting the location with casting and jigging.
Allen’s trolling philosophy isn’t about putting multiple rods in holders and covering acreage of water in search of fish. He often maps out a piece of structure and uses trolling baits such as Musky Armor Krushers, Bagley Shads, Triple-D crankbaits, and spoon plugs to effectively cover it. Most trolling passes we made never extended farther than the edges of the structures we were fishing, but were short 50 to 100 yard drive-by’s which bumped and grinded over the deep structures.
With this single line trolling, we held the rod at all times. This form of trolling allows anglers to understand how the lure is running and what it is doing at all times. The rod’s vibration indicates what type of vibration and action the crankbait has at different speeds. Holding the rod also generates action and allows the bait to get pumped which can generate strikes from following fish and reel drags can then be adjusted whenever needed. With each bump and grind of the bottom, trolling noobs like myself can fully understand the nature of the structure and our trolling passes and lure depths can be adjusted accordingly. With rod in hand, we get to experience the excitement and rush of powerful strikes.
However, on this trip, we also failed to locate any muskies while trolling. Two other fish came to boatside but were done by casting with crankbaits along main lake areas containing warmer water temperatures. Both were big. A fish Cory hooked and lost at boatside was all of 45 inches, and another he raised on a Medussa was a 50 to 52 inch giant.
At this point of my trip summary, you may be wondering and asking yourselves why the hell is there even a fishing report and why is this worth writing about when zero fish were caught by a licensed fishing guide and professional, and an expert angler who travels, fishes tournaments and writes articles as one of his side jobs. I believe in the concept of learning whether fish are to be caught or not. And I am brutally honest and have no shame in my game. This latest trip fully illustrates that knowledge is power and you can always learn about a specific fishery by reading about one’s experience.
We fished the right locations, we threw the entire boat at them, and we fished specific locations which we knew held fish. But nothing was working and muskies showed their disinterest due to many biological factors and weather related events. For the first time ever, I came home a zero and caught nothing. The fishing was enjoyable, but brutal to the extent that absolutely nobody else on the lake was catching anything of any species – not even other guys or folks fishing the stacked pool below the steam plant.
A humbling experience, and a trip I will make once again this fall when my northern travels conclude. I completely see why Melton Hill is revered as a special, unique musky fishery. IT HAS IT!
Despite instantaneous multimedia coverage of the hottest action in musky angling, there remains a hidden chronicle and untapped population of musky at the bottom of the known musky range in Tennessee. These waters are still being charted in the musky world by guides like Cory Allen. There are subjects about the beast which are still unknown, and whose behaviors are still in the process of being figured out.
If interested in a 2014 fishing trip to Melton Hill, Tennessee (or any Tennessee waterways and river systems for the matter), I highly recommend hiring Allen to speed up the learning curve as he will put you on muskies on these waterways and teach you things that can be applied elsewhere in the musky range. He fishes the system year-round and is available weekly. His knowledge is nothing short of extraordinary, and he is not afraid to blend science, on the water limits, and unorthodox methods and innovation into catching fish. I truly believe he catches more 50 inch trophy muskies than anyone else in the country who is NOT fishing or guiding the Great Lakes, Minnesota, or Northwest Ontario. Believe it.
Cory Allen
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
www.stonesthrowadventures.com
stonesthrowadventures@gmail.com
(931) 261-2483
As the title reads, we both succumbed to nasal congestion and colds following our 4.5 days of fishing.
