Top 10 baits from Lake Chickamauga - Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats
by Major League Fishing 26 Mar 17:19 UTC
Dylan Nutt and twin brother Carter started fishing Lake Chickamauga together in high school - Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats © Jody White
The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Central Division tournament on Lake Chickamauga was a big success, with heavy weights and lots of fish caught.
On the pro side, a 10-pounder was weighed every day, and 20-pound bags were commonplace. Despite water that was churned with mud early in the event and rapidly dropping water levels throughout the event, anglers caught fish a variety of ways. It was totally possible to make the Top 25 fishing grass or fishing shallow. But, to make the Top 10 and contend for the win, the name of the game was a minnow and forward-facing sonar, fishing for bass that were on structure or cover, as well as on bait and "floating."
1. Nutt does it again
Dylan Nutt has put together a superlative winter of fishing, and now won back-to-back Central Division events. For both events, he's relied on some of his primary strengths. At Chick, he used a TrueBass FF Minnow on a Scottsboro Tackle tungsten jighead, a Berkley Frittside and an unnamed jerkbait.
2. O'Barr almost makes an accidental comeback
Going into the final day well off the lead, but in second, Hayden O'Barr expected Nutt to shut down the derby in his typical style. When he didn't and left the door open with only 18-12 on Day 3, O'Barr suddenly finished just shy of a huge win.
"I went out completely thinking I did not have a chance," he said. "All I knew was third place was only 2 ounces behind me, and he's, like, one of the best people on the lake. I fished as hard as I could just to try to stay in second place. And when, you know, it was all said and done and I came back to weigh-in and realized Dylan didn't have them, it really made the loss hurt a lot more.
"I'm happy with how it finished, you know, especially with everything that happened with my motor blowing on Day 2 and not getting any sleep all week," he said. "I was happy with it, but it definitely made it a lot tougher of a loss knowing that if I just had one more 6-pounder I could have won. I weighed in a 3-pounder the last day, and that hurts."
Throwing a 5-inch minnow on a 1/4-ounce head and a Rapala PXR Mavrick 110, O'Barr used TigeRodz with Eternity blanks, using a 6-foot, 10-inch, medium light model for his minnow and a 6-10, medium for his jerkbait.
"I was looking around for suspended fish and current eddies with how the current was rolling down the lake," O'Barr said. "Some parts of the day, around midday, they would go to the bottom, and you had to start targeting them on the bottom. But, for the most part, I was looking for suspenders and current eddies closer to banks and stuff like that."
3. Honey hole produces for Fields
Ethan Fields has been money anywhere on the Tennessee River lately, and this week he did it up big on Chickamauga.
"I was just catching fish on bait, just going down channel swings, stuff like that," he said. "The second day, I was doing the same thing and just catching a bunch of little ones. Then, I found a spot in a little pocket, right off the main secondary channel. For some reason, I don't know if it was a little current wash that got made there or something, they kept pulling up and reloading on it. There were big ones on it for that second day and the third day.
"I really wish I would have found it the first day. It probably would have helped me out quite a bit. But the second day, it was loaded up, I just could only get two to bite. The third day, I pull back in there, it was a lot more muddy, so I don't know if that's what killed it, but there were only two there. Thankfully, one was a 10 and one was a 7 1/2. So, that helped out quite a bit, it was a pretty sweet little deal."
Fields' minnow of choice was a Deps Sakamata Shad in the 5- and 6-inch models on a 3/16-ounce Owner Ranger Roller. He also caught a 5-pounder out of a brush pile on Day 2 with a 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer trailered with a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader. He used a 7-5, Cashion ICON Forward Facing Sonar Rod for his minnow.
4. Nutt rides the minnow bite
The other Nutt in the field, Carter Nutt weighed solid bags each of the first two days and 27 pounds on the final day to roll up into fourth place. Like many, he went with a minnow for a lot of his fish, using a Picasso tungsten head with a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader.
5. Falling water sinks Falardeau's chances
Relying less on forward-facing sonar than anyone else in the Top 10, Dillon Falardeau cracked 31 pounds on Day 1 but fell off from there.
Throwing a jerkbait and a minnow when he did 'Scope, Falardeau used a trio of winding baits shallow. A 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer with a matching 4.5-inch Hog Farmer Spunk Shad trailer did work, as well as Jackall TN 50 and 60 lipless baits. He used a Dobyns Champion XP 705 CB for the lipless baits and a Dobyns Champion XP Glass 736 for the ChatterBait. He used Shimano reels and Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon across the board.
On Day 1, Falardeau's big bag came together late.
"I started each day 'Scoping, just to get a limit and hopefully catch a couple of big ones, but I just never got that big one," he said. "I never got that big one on the minnow and or the jerkbait.
"I had one big bite in the last day of practice up shallow," he said. "So, I just figured I would go try it even though I knew it was going to be won 'Scoping. When I was leaving, going there, I'm, shaking my head, 'Man, I know I can go catch 'em there, but I feel like I'm not gonna win there.'"
Falardeau got right to business.
"I pulled up, and within two casts, I jumped off that 10," he said. "The females pulled up, and I knew where to go after that. My very next spot, it was just a little current break where the water was perfect depth, and you could see some current rolling over the point. They were just sitting right behind it in 10 inches of water, and when my ChatterBait landed, and you just see the boil.
"That was the 8-9, and then I freaked out a little bit, put it in the livewell, stood up, turned around - I wasn't even all the way up on the front deck yet, the ChatterBait lands, I look up and just see another boil, that was the 8-3. I ended up catching the 6 right there too, and then I left it alone."
Sitting at 29 pounds, Falardeau settled back in to 'Scoping, hoping to find the right fish to chase a win on. On the way, he caught a 5-pounder on a jerkbait to get more than 30 pounds. On Day 2, he 'Scoped another limit and caught two big ones shallow. By the last day, that bite was gone.
"The water dropped too much, and, the wind was just howling in my area, it muddied it all up," Falardeau said. "There were 2-foot waves pushing in on all my Rat-L-Trap stuff and ChatterBait stuff."
6. Johnson glides and minnows
Racking up more than 24 pounds on Day 1 and Day 3, Lake Johnson fished down lake and ran a fairly standard pattern.
"I was just going on the bank, looking for floaters," Johnson said. "The only real deal with it is it had to be deep water off the bank. I was staying about a hundred feet off the bank, just looking for anything up high in the water column. It was about 30 foot deep, and then sometimes when I'd go in the pockets, it'd be, you know, 20 out in the middle, but they would be sitting 2 or 3 feet under the surface."
Johnson used a few baits including a Clutch Eco Glide Bait and a Clutch Baby Boss Glide Bait which he lost. His minnow of choice was the Ignite Nicotine Minnow in the new 6.5-inch size on a 1/8-ounce Chompers FFS Horizon Head Pro.
7. Anaya targets staging cover
Coming in with just a few hours of practice after another event, Fisher Anaya caught a giant on Day 1 and it helped him cruise to a Top 10.
Fishing a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader on a 1/8-ounce VMC RedLine Series Tungsten Swimbait Jig, Anaya used a 6-foot, 10-inch, medium light 13 Fishing Myth spinning rod.
"I got six hours of practice, and I put the trolling motor down and just trolled and looked for any sort of stick up or something they could stage on going into spawning bays," he said. "That's basically what I ran all week."
8. Shaw keeps the ball rolling
Fresh off a Top 10 at the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals event at Lake Hartwell, Banks Shaw put together a great finish on his home lake with limited practice.
"I fished the BFL there two weeks prior, and that was my practice for the Toyota just because I knew I wasn't going to get any practice after the Invitationals," Shaw said. "So, I just went off that, and then, of course, the conditions changed with the big rain we got. It dirtied up the water; and I knew that I would have a better chance of catching fish if I was in cleaner water where they'd be easier to hit and get their attention. Like, I wouldn't have to put it literally on their nose.
"So, that's what I looked for - just the cleaner water in creeks," Shaw said. "Nothing really super main river or anything like that. The fish were definitely trying to stay out of the current for the most part. What I targeted was clean water with bigger bait fish in the area and fish that were just actively roaming around, feeding."
For baits, Shaw used a Taddo EON Glide 7 and a 3/16-ounce Picasso tungsten head with a Rapala CrushCity Freeloader. He threw both baits on Joe Burns Custom rods.
9. Jerkbait and minnow work for Dyar
Logan Dyar locked up his third Toyota Series Top 10 since 2024 on Chickamauga, turning in another great performance on the Tennessee River.
"I had a few areas down the lake where I was trying to target prespawn fish, mostly roaming high in the water column. Some of them were bait-oriented, some of them weren't," said Dyar. "And then along with that, I had a couple pieces of structure I would try to rotate each day. And, basically, just try to, you know, present my bait to as many fish as possible throughout the day and hopefully run into a big one."
Day 3 was a big one for Dyar.
"I really figured them out at like 1 o'clock," he said. "I had an area where I feel like the females kinda pulled out into with that cold front that came in, and those fish that I caught were actually roaming in bait. So that was something that I wish I would have keyed in on a little bit earlier."
Dyar relied on a Deps Sakamata Shad with a 1/8-ounce head and a Megabass Vision 110+2.
10. Minnow the way to go for Kolisek
Weighing big bags on Day 1 and Day 2, Preston Kolisek went with what was working.
His primary baits were a 5.5-inch Hog Farmer Spunk Shad and a Zoom Super Fluke (green albino) with 3/16-ounce Picasso tungsten heads.
"I caught all my fish in Chester, and I'd start in the morning where I saw some fish actively feeding on bait and on structure and roll it by them and hope they bit," he said. "I wasn't catching a lot of size, I had, like one or two big bites a day."