Dixie Duel in Decatur

[Dan]

I'm leaving Saturday morning for the Dixie Duel, the next B.A.S.S. Elite event. We are towing a boat down and plan on fishing a few days. Anybody have any advice as to a ramp and a direction to try on Guntersville? Never been there before, but would sure like to try it.
We are going to fish a few days in advance of the tournament where my buddy and I will be working as Marshalls. We got in because of the cancelation of the Bay De Noc event. We were in the first 50 there and had three days as Marshalls, but we are more than likely only going to be riding with a pro the first two days. That will give us two more days at the end of the week where we can fish Wheeler. I've fished Wheeler before, and we'll have an idea of what the fish are doing after riding with the pros for two days. I'll be blogging, I hope, on my teardropbass.com webpage so tune in.

[TCook]

Your a lucky man Dan, have fun and I look forward to reading your blog.

[Dan]

I just talked to my brother-in-law who lives 20 miles north of Decatur and he said they are suppose to get 8 inches of rain in the next couple of days. The tournament in Decatur is on Wheeler, which really is just the backwater of Wheeler Dam. It's the Tennessee River. I would suspect that the water temps are going to be getting close to spawning temps and the moon will be a waxing gibbous becoming full a few days after the tournament. Should be some fish, or maybe a lot of fish moving shallow. With all the rising water though the river will be muddy and sight fishing will likely not be a key strategy. I do well down there on a chrome rattletrap. Prespawn fish may be susceptable to a trap or a big spinnerbait in the muddy water. We'll see. One of the best parts of the whole trip is I get to go down with a long time friend who has been diagnosed with Parkinsons. He's going for the gusto and is working hard physically and emotionally. He's in my prayers every night and if he's also in yours once in a while that would be great.
Oh yea, you can bet that one of our first stops will be Lawler's Barbecue for some pulled ham and then in Decatur we'll be stopping for some barbecue beef brisket at Big Bob Gibson's. I'll also get a chance to stop in to one of my favorite bait shops West End on Highway 72 heading west toward Wheeler Dam and about 40 minutes from Florence and Pickwick and just outside of Athens. AL. Hopefully, it works out to get over to Guntersville, but that's a 5 hour round trip from where we'll be staying, plus I've never fished it, and I get a little intimidated by new water that is as large as Guntersville.

[Mark117]

any co-anglers looking to head to ohio to fish the weekend series events? indian,alum creek,rocky fork, mosquito, sandusky...

any help on indian lake?

                                    THANKS,
                                                 jon