After two largemouth-only stops to start the season at the Harris Chain of Lakes and Santee Cooper, Stop 3 Presented by Suzuki Marine takes the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech pros to the familiar Tennessee River. Wheeler Lake is known for big smallmouth, good largemouth fishing and plenty of variety – from dam to dam, there are a bunch of ways to catch bass, and they should be munching March 19-21.
Last time
Maybe the best recent comparison for this event is last year’s Columbia PFG College Fishing National Championship, held in early April, it was won offshore, but some teams made hay shallow as well. Wheeler is also a pretty regular stop for the Phoenix Bass Fishing League – in March last year, Alex Hester weighed 23-9 to win with a spinnerbait and a jig. Back in 2022, Slick Johnson weighed 24-2 to win fishing shell, also offshore.
On Wheeler, offshore doesn’t have to mean deep – the Decatur Flats is a famously big area with shallow sweet spots. These days, forward-facing sonar has opened up more of the lake, maybe most of all for smallmouth, and, there is also a tailrace bite and lots of traditional fishing to be done in the creeks.
What to expect this time
With wins up and down the Tennessee River, Jimmy Washam has seen a lot of nearly every reservoir on the chain. For this event, he figures the bite will be good, and that we could be in for a power-fishing slugfest.
“That far into March, generally you have some color in the water, more current, and what’s already a fishery that is prone to be shallow,” Washam outlined. “There’s going to be a ton of fish up shallow, there will be fish in the dirt. We won’t have the full-pool draw up yet, and depending on current flow, it will probably be about a foot below summer pool.
“There will be a lot of fish shallow,” he said. “There will be some spawners, and there will be a lot of fish up ready to chew. I think it will be really fun, a lot of shallow power fishing – a fun event.”
According to Washam, the smallmouth could be spawning, or on either side of it. Meanwhile, he expects most of the largemouth in the lake to be prespawn.
“I fished an event there in early May a few years ago, and there were quite a few spawning largemouth,” he said. “If we have warm, stained water, the fish seem to run shallow. To me, on the Tennessee River, mid- to late-March is the best time to catch numbers and big largemouth that pull up and want to feed.”
Of course, being that Wheeler is on the Tennessee River, “shallow” doesn’t have to mean the bank. There could be fish caught well off the bank, or fish caught in the tailrace of the Guntersville Dam. Regardless, look forward to a good event, at a time of year when the weights should be near their peak on Wheeler.
Headlines to watch for
It’s hard to beat a Tennessee River event when it’s a good one. Flowing through the heart of bass fishing country, there’s a ton of history on every reservoir, and spring in particular is a great time to be there. Dynamic in a way that summertime events aren’t, there should be plenty of storylines to keep an eye on.
- Stay tuned for smallmouth – Last year in the natty, Brody Robison and Peyton Sorrow caught a bunch of smallmouth on the way to the win, and, outside of Pickwick and the new-look Kentucky Lake, Wheeler has one of the better smallmouth populations on the Tennessee River. In this event, it’d be no surprise to see someone sack a lot of weight in brown, and maybe win.
- Keep an eye on the kids – A lot of the best college talent in the field is from the University of North Alabama and very well-schooled as it were on the Tennessee River. Then, you’ve got Matteo Turano who is young and super good down the chain on Kentucky Lake, and Lake Johnson first learned how to drag a Carolina rig on the bars of Wheeler.
- Change should be expected – If there’s anything to know about spring on the Tennessee River, it’s that the current conditions are far from set in stone. In this one, rain anywhere on the chain could affect the event, and the fish will respond to rising or falling water accordingly. Adjusting accordingly could be the difference between winning and driving home after weigh-in on Day 2.
Follow along
You can follow the action at Stop 3 Presented by Suzuki Marine on Wheeler Lake during all three days of competition, March 19-21, on MLFNOW! and stay locked to MajorLeagueFishing.com for on-the-water galleries, daily stories and more.