It’s sauger time in Tennessee. And when you’re after sauger there’s no better place to go than the Cordell Hull Dam in Carthage, Tennessee. At least that’s what the host with the radio voice said on my Tennessee’s Wild Side the other morning. They sent one of their “wild side guides” out with an accomplished sauger fisherman and filmed a segment of them at the base of the dam. The sauger guru caught a fish on every cast, albeit small ones. The guide didn’t do so well. The sauger guru laughed at the guides misfortune and slung light insults his way as he continued reeling in one fish after another. It looked fun. The mere act of sauger fishing looked to be a badge of honor since to do it right the sky should be leaden grey, the air temperature twenty-three degrees with a slight spit of snow blowing around.
The sauger is a smaller cousin to the walleye. The fish look very similar. Sauger populations have faired better in the Tennessee Valley because they tolerate turbid water better than the more walleye which thrives in clear cold water. Thirty plus years of siltation above TVA dams have caused a significant drop in walleye populations.
I decided to try my hand at catching sauger. The temperature wasn’t in the twenties but it was cold enough. Sauger in Tennessee are caught in the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. On the Cumberland Old Hickory, Cheatham, and Cordell Hull Lakes all boast decent sauger populations but with my poor luck at fishing where there is actually a fish to catch I decided I’d better stick with a proven location so I drove to Carthage.
When fishing the worst case scenario is that you will have a scenic drive getting to the spot. I drove east out Interstate 40 to the Carthage exit and then several miles across Highway Twenty-five. On the modern road I skirted the hymn of Carthage proper and headed up a hill where cinderblock shacks slowly disintegrated in to the muddy yards. One house sported a pile of plastic fascias off long dead Saturn vehicles and another was made of yellow brick and plywood and looked like a Dutch barn…perhaps it was the ugliest house that was intentionally built that I have ever seen. I am country people myself but I don’t know why country people like so much junky crap in their yards.
I turned onto Turkey Creek and passed a store that sold Levis, shoes, and minnows and lickety split was on the Corps of Engineers property. They built most of the dams around middle Tennessee. I passed the Visitor’s Center and saw it had been destroyed by fire. The makeshift visitors center was across the road in a mint green and white sheet metal building. I walked in and was greeted by tall attractive red head who smiled at me. Before she could speak a man wearing all denim came out of the back and I asked him where to catch sauger from the bank and he said, “The other side of the river.” He told me people were catching sauger around the dam structure and around any of the series of concrete steps that lead to the river from the parking lots above. He also told me where to buy bait when I headed over to the other side of the river which would turn out to be a more involved evolution than seemed necessary. I said thank you and waved good bye. The red headed lady was still smiling at me. I don’t think they get many visitors at the visitors center this time of year.
I drove down to the damn and found that it is not an attractive structure. It’s not like Hoover Dam or even Pickwick Dam. The Cumberland is a decent sized river but the dam looked short and sort of like a flooded dry dock. Electrical poles shot up out of the concrete as if the river were Frankenstein’s monster being brought to life. Apart from three boats under the spillway the other six or seven fishermen all sat on the far bank.
I drove out to the lock which is what the structure is called on the other side of the river. As the crow flies I was only going less than eight hundred feet. But country roads being what they are it was a journey of nine or ten miles. On the way I crossed an old iron bridge across the Caney Fork River. It reminded me that this is the hometown of Al Gore. He filmed footage of the Caney Fork and used it in An Inconvenient Truth. The Caney Fork is a small cold water river and is one of the few places in middle Tennessee where the stocked trout can live through the summer and reproduce. Shortly past the bridge I stopped at the Caney Fork Market. I asked how to get minnows. “Just take your bucket and count out the minners as best you can. They‘re a $1.29 a dozen.” I put two dozen minnows in my igloo lunch box cooler and also bought a spinner lure. Luckily it was cheap because I wound up losing it in the river.
From the store I turned onto XXXXX and for six miles wound around a beautiful road that wound up and down and hugged the sides of the limestone hills. The drive was pretty but I look forward to returning in the summer. Tennessee has the curious distinction of being the greenest state in the union for seven or eight months a year but being utterly grey and desolate looking as a prison yard from late November through early April.
I finally arrived at the lock and took a position at the far end of the line of men I’d seen from across the river. I was farther away from the structure than I would have liked but I was right beside one of the steps the guy at the visitor’s center had recommended. I rigged my line and I’m sure it was all wrong for what I wanted to catch: two good sized led pellets about eighteen inches above the hook. [Note: A proper rig would have been to have the wait right above the shank of the hook jig fashion to bounce the minnow across the bottom but in two sentences you’ll see why this wouldn’t have worked for me.] I hooked my minnow on through his lower jaw and the top of his nose so he was free to wiggle (unfortunately in pain I’m sure) and cast in. Within thirty seconds I was hung up. I rerigged my line, let it sit in the water for about three minutes and was hung up again. There was a weed growing in the water that I kept getting tangled in. Sometimes I’d reel in pieces of it on a bent hook.
The other fishermen were using corks to control their depth at about four or five feet but that didn’t seem deep enough to me. Besides, only one of them had any fish and that was a stringer with three or four fairly small crappie on it. I was here to catch sauger. I tried the lure, lost it on the third cast then went back to the minnows. An hour later I moved to the upper side of the dam.
For some reason no one was fishing on the upper side except a great blue heron which flew away in shrieks of protest when I crushed through the brush to the rocky bank. Using a cork I fished at four feet but didn’t even get a bit. But the clouds had broken up and my spot was sunny. Enjoy the view if you can’t enjoy the fishing.
I later drove out to a boat ramp at the mouth of a creek that came into the river just above the dam. I fished an alcove and two man-made points but still nothing. Over three hours without a bite wears out my patience. I was done for the day but am looking forward to going back when it is warm outside and the trees have leafed out and this beautiful newfound fishing spot is green and full of life.
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