Tennessee’s Chickamauga Lake is a Bass Fisher’s Dream

Posted: July 13th, 2017 by Bill Dance

The month of July in the Chattanooga area can offer some great fishing opportunities due to the versatility offered by Chickamauga Lake, which navigates through the city of Chattanooga.

Chickamauga Dam, which lays within the Chattanooga city limits, separates these two reservoirs. The Chickamauga Dams tailwaters (Nickajack headwaters) offer some of the best fishing in the Chattanooga area year around.

This is because of favorable characteristics such as cooler water in the summer, water current, preferred habitat (rip rap banks and a rocky bottom) and lots of available bait fish such as threadfin and gizzard shad. In July, one could anticipate catching catfish, bluegill, redear sunfish, spotted bass, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and striped bass as well as other species in this area.

The most popular baits depend on the species which are typically live bait such as shad for stripers and bass, worms or crickets for bluegill, cut fish bait for catfish and artificial baits that mimic shad or crayfish for most game fish.

This tailwater area also offers good boat access and also some of the best bank fishing opportunities. The best bank fishing area is adjacent to and below the Chickamauga Dam at the south end of the dam. A fishing pier is also located there. Areas downstream from this tailwater area also offer good fishing around laydowns and breaks in the river current where fish await food to be brought to them by the river current.