Kevin VanDam

Traffic on Old Hickory Lake may help critical shallow bite Day 3

June 28, 2008
(bassmaster.com, June 28, 2008)

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. — Rick Clunn isn’t just old-school — the guy’s practically Oxford. For him, a Saturday jostling against the heavy boat traffic expected to flood onto Old Hickory Lake isn’t his ideal day of fishing.

“I still look for the quietness and solitude and birds chirping — not policing 30 boats,” said Clunn, currently second (29 pounds, 7 ounces) among the 50 Bassmaster Elite Series anglers remaining in the Tennessee Triumph presented by Longhorn. “I don’t have the right to (direct traffic), but I have to, in the framework of what I do.”

More than the nuisance of trying to fish in the wake of yachts or going elbow-to-elbow with a weekend tournament angler in a johnboat, Clunn and other anglers have to worry about how their fish — especially those on banks and flats — will respond to the changing conditions.

Some anglers would tell you adjusting is all they ever do.

“I like it tough,” said Terry Scroggins (t-30th, 20-4). “It brings out the best in you, if you’re good. Or it brings out the bad, if you’re bad.”

But on a relatively small, skinny lake next to a metropolitan area with 1.5 million residents, both anglers and fish stand to take a pounding. Still, anglers interviewed before take-off at Sanders Ferry Park on the morning of Day Three said more boats on the water may actually enhance the shallow fishing that many anglers have so far relied upon.

“Boat traffic may stir the water, help make it muddier,” said Alton Jones (25th place, 20-12). “It might make the fish more approachable.”

While some anglers — including Days One and Two leader Kevin Wirth (32-12) — have been targeting small structure and objects in shallow water, others, Jones said, will be able to find unpressured water in creek channels. On the banks, though, he added, “there’s a lot of guys round-robining through some spots.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?id=3464950

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