Lake Chickamauga Midday Update - Day 3 - Major League Fishing

Lake Chickamauga Midday Update – Day 3

Everybody is catching fish on the final day in Dayton, Tenn.
Image for Lake Chickamauga Midday Update – Day 3
Brian Elder Photo by Kevin Jones. Angler: Brian Elder.
February 29, 2020 • Richard Simms • Toyota Series

(Editor's note: Today's weigh-in will begin at 3 p.m. ET. It was originally reported to begin at 4 p.m. ET.)

“Everybody is catching fish.”

That’s the word from the camera boats following anglers on day three of the 2020 Toyota Series Central Division tournament on Lake Chickamauga.

Clearing skies and a brisk breeze greeted the top 10 anglers as they left Dayton Boat Dock Saturday morning. 

First-place pro Brian Elder from Locust Grove, Ga., was chipping away at them in the back end of a hard-to-reach pocket on the upper end of Lake Chickamauga. Reports indicated that Elder was culling fish by 11 a.m.

Jim Neece Jr., from Bristol, Tenn., who was in second place after day two, got off to a slow start. He said the fish he had been on the two days before seemed to have moved, possibly due to a slight rise in the water level. But he recovered quickly on his second spot and had three keepers in the box when the camera left him at around 9 a.m.

Brent Butler, from Vonore, Tenn., who began the day in third place, was also faring well. We aren’t sure how many fish he had in the livewell, but he seemed happy when the final fish we saw him catch went in the box.

Gavin Ainslie, a rookie FLW pro who started the day in fourth place, ran to the south end of Lake Chickamauga. No reports on how Ainslie is faring.

Fifth-place angler Steve Barnes, another local pro from Harrison, Tenn., had three fish in the livewell around 9:30. 

“These fish won’t fire until Midday,” he says. “I’m just kind of killing time right now.”

Josh Norris, a local pro from Spring City, Tenn., who began the day in sixth place, was also chipping away on a wind-blown mid-lake. Norris had four bass in the livewell at 10 a.m. His co-angler, Jason Cook, put a solid fish in the boat at 10 a.m. just as the camera boat was pulling away.

FLW veteran Wesley Strader, also from Spring City, Tenn., who began the day in 10th place, didn’t even crank his big engine to catch his first fish just barely a cast away from the launch point in Richland Creek.

Bottom line: It looks as if lots of limits will be coming to the scale when the weigh-in begins at 3 p.m. ET.

Tournament details