First-Rate Fishing Below Dams

A good sense of feel with your rig allows you to identify the location and length of current tunnels. Cast to the crease at the head of the current break. The rig sinks through stronger current, eventually hitting bottom where it’s surrounded by slower-moving water with faster water coursing above it. Holding your rod tip at about 2 o’clock, tighten your line to your rig lying on bottom. Your sinker should be just heavy enough so turbulent water sweeping against most of your line drags your bait slowly along the bottom. Hit a current tunnel and your bait stops, at least momentarily. Sometimes the rig anchors where it first hits the tunnel. Other times, when the boat isn’t in perfect position, the bait is dragged along the edge of the tunnel or swept out of it. With experience, you’ll be able to judge what’s happening.

Hit the head of the tunnel, keep your bait there for two minutes, and you’ll feel the solid cawonk! of a cat. Drop your rod tip a foot or two toward the fish as it begins to move away, and then set. Big cats don’t miss when a bait’s in a tunnel. And little cats don’t dare fin where monsters tread.

Chances are, several good fish are working each tunnel. They move forward through it until they reach the head, then sweep back to the area near the tail end and work forward again. Picture the tail of a tunnel waggling around like the bottom of the cone of a tornado. The farther back in a tunnel your bait is, the more turbulent the water and the more difficult for cats to find your bait.

Pancake tunnels are most common. They lie along current breaks where currents moving in opposite directions meet. These can be fished from a boat or from shore, using the same presentation described above. A float may also be helpful in moving a bait along or through these flatter and longer tunnels. Catfish aren’t so likely to always lie at the head of these tunnels, so it takes longer for fish to find your bait. It shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes in a spot, though. Fish along areas and move on—or at least try a different portion of a current area.

Hold the rod tip high to minimize the amount of line in the water. Again, don’t ever keep your bait in the same spot for long. Let it settle, let it drag, get it to hold. Wait no more than five minutes. Move the bait again to be sure you’re searching for cats, and to be sure it hasn’t tumbled into a crevice where fish can’t find it. In large and turbulent tailwaters like those found behind TVA dams and behind the locks on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, few rigs hold bottom better than the breakaway design, which usually consists of a light dropline and sinker that snags bottom as it drifts along. A cat takes the bait and the drop rigging breaks, freeing the catfish to fight without weight on the line.

Another approach is to use a boat to run up into the fast water. Stop along a current crease and when the boat starts drifting at the same speed as the current, drop your bait vertically to the bottom. Use your motor to keep the boat moving just fast enough to keep your bait vertical. Again, you’re moving the bait along in the slower water on bottom.

Some of the hottest territory is the tailout of the hole gouged immediately below the dam. When your bait hits this area, it slows even more as it enters the tunnel that runs along the drop-off lip coming up from the deep water in the hole. This tunnel runs the length of the rear of the hole, but there’s no way to fish it perpendicular to current. You can only drag baits through it by drifting downriver. Once your bait’s swept up onto the flat at the end of the tailout hole, reel up, motor back to the end of the turbulence, and begin again.

These basic principles apply to situations found in every tailwater, but other tactics are bound to develop, given the peculiarities of each location. Always be willing to try what’s working locally, but don’t be afraid to buck the status quo.