HOW AND WHERE TO CATCH CATS AT NIGHT

Fishing The Locks

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jerry Crook of Gardendale, Alabama, a veteran Tennessee River angler, has over 22 years of experience fishing that river. Crook operates Tailrace Guide Service that focuses on live-bait fishing to provide his anglers with various opportunities to catch several species of fish in a day's outing.

Question: The tailrace area isn't the only part of the dam where you can fish to catch cats. Where else can you catch cats?
Crook: You can catch cats at the locks, which are lit up very well, so you'll have great visibility without having to bring your own lighting. Too, threadfin shad will run the long walls of the recreational boat lock and the commercial boat lock. If you're in that region during the day or even at night, motor over to the lock walls, and go around them with your electronics to look for balls of bait. If you see those bait balls, you've found a good location to take catfish.

Question: Tell me about the fishing at the lock.
Crook: The best fishing at Wheeler Dam is at the commercial boat lock where the barge traffic passes through it. If TVA sounds the siren to indicate boat traffic in the lock, you need to get out of there. When the lock is full and there is no traveling going on inside the lock, a current is generated through some leaks in the doors. Too, that place will hold some fish because the baitfish will congregate around that current.

Question: We also fished near the ladders at the lock. Tell me about that fishing location.
Crook: The ladders provide a productive place to tie up your boat and fish for cats. The bait tends to run parallel with those walls, and the catfish run up and down the walls, chasing that bait.

Question: These ladders are indentations in the concrete with steel-reinforcement bars as steps that extend all the way to the base of the dam, correct?
Crook: Yes. The water by the ladders is about 16-feet deep, which means it's a great spot to catch flathead catfish, which often are hard to come by.

Question: Every lock has an exit hole where water is expelled once the dam is full. Tell me about the blowhole.
Crook: Wheeler Dam is the only dam that I know of that has an external blowhole. At most of the other dams, such as Wilson and Guntersville, both also on the Tennessee, the water generates much like a turbine boil. At Wheeler Dam, you'll see an octagon-shaped concrete structure that comes up out of the water, approximately 7- to 8-feet high. The small threadfin shad will circle this external blow hole, and catfish will get right at the base of it.

For more information on fishing the tailrace contact Jerry Crook at 1128-Meadow Drive, Gardendale, Alabama 35071, or call him at (home) 205-608-0933 or (cell) 205-243-6198. You can visit his website at www.alabamaoutdoors.net/tailrace.html.

TOMORROW: FIND OTHER STRUCTURES THAT YOU CAN FISH AT NIGHT