East Tennessee’s Melton Hill Lake awaits anglers who want to mine for some of the biggest water wolves in the region.
Daylight was breaking, and a thin blanket of fog hovered above the waters of Melton Hill Lake as guide Steve West launched his 18-foot boat at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency ramp upstream from the Pellissippi Parkway bridge.
West’s 115-horsepower Evinrude motor roared and sped across the slightly choppy waters and soon passed beneath the bridge. He was headed for a small cove at the opposite side of the lake.
Just before he entered the cove, West cut the Evinrude throttle back to idle and steered toward a dock that extended some 30 feet out into the lake.
“Muskies normally are spooky fish, especially on a blue bird day like today, and I try to do everything I can to avoid scaring them,” he said.
“Bear in mind that no one I know boats a muskie every time he fishes for them.”
To hunters of Esox masquinongy, also called the water wolf, the muskellunge is known as the fish of 10,000 casts and frequently lives up to that reputation.
“In previous years I’ve had 50 to 60 muskies follow my lures, hooked 20 to 25 of my strikes and boated six or seven,” West said. “Unfortunately, two thirds of them got off before I could get them to the boat.
“The roof of a muskie’s mouth is solid bone, so it’s difficult to get a solid hook set. To get one to the boat, it’s best to hook the muskie in the side of its jaw. So you can see, the odds are not in our favor, but the suspense of what will happen after my next cast keeps me returning to the lake. And my odds of actually hooking a muskie are much better at this lake than on any other lake or stream in the state.”
Actually, many pros consider Melton Hill the South’s best over-all muskie lake.
West said a pro muskie angler from Kentucky and another from western North Carolina occasionally journey to Tennessee to fish with him.
Perhaps, the best known muskie hunter to praise Melton Hill Lake is Dave Johnson, a fisheries biologist, guide, photographer and author from Wisconsin, who had flattering things to say about Melton Hill last June during a telephone conversation at his cabin at Ontario’s renowned Lake-of-the-Woods. He was there making a muskie fishing film for television.
“For the past two years, I’ve been spending mid-February to mid-April fishing Melton Hill Lake,” Johnson said, “and I’ve found that it produces the best overall muskie fishing in the South.
“Previously, I’ve fished a couple of reservoirs in southeastern Kentucky, but Melton Hill is now superior because of the abundant supply of forage fish and cooler water temperatures during the hot summer months and warmer temperatures during extremely cold weather. Melton Hill’s muskies are healthy and growing rapidly.
“The clean, well-oxygenated, 50-degree water discharged upstream from Norris Dam provides water temperatures with oxygen content within a range that is ideal for muskie survival and growth.
“Conversely, the Kentucky reservoirs I previously fished suffered badly during the summer months due to much higher water temperatures and correspondingly lower oxygen levels.
“Muskies don’t do well in 80- to 90-degree water. In contrast, Melton Hill has suitable water temperatures all year long. And the scattered forage fish in the Green and Cumberland rivers are harder to locate at any time of the year.
“During extremely cold weather, threadfin and gizzard shad and alewives are attracted to the warmer waters discharged by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run electric generating plant on Melton Hill, and they’re easy prey for the muskies.
“This year (2007), I boated 24 muskies, including one 46-incher, in two months (at Melton Hill Lake).”
As he approached the boat dock, West shut off his Evinrude, scampered to the bow of his SeaArc aluminum boat and slipped his MinnKota electric trolling motor into the water.
“This trolling motor is really great for maneuvering in these narrow coves,” he said. “Alhough it has 74 pounds of thrust, it’s virtuously noiseless.”
West’s three fishing outfits were rigged and almost ready for use. The sturdy rods varied in length from 6 feet, 8 inches to 8 feet and were equipped with large level-winding casting reels containing 80-pound-test braided line and an 18-inch stainless steel leader with a snap swivel.
West has been a muskie hunter for six years and a muskie guide for two years. He’s been making many of his own lures for 12 years and owns Caney Creek Custom Baits.
West has been making bass-size three-blade spinner lures for many years because he uses them to compete during local bass tournaments. But his arsenal of home-made lures expanded a few years ago when a regular customer asked West if he could make a much larger multi-blade spinner.
“I told my customer I could,” he said. “But I was curious as to why he would need such a bait. His reply really surprised me. He said he wanted it to catch muskies.
“At that time, I hadn’t given a thought to muskie fishing. I had heard that TWRA had stocked muskies in some streams and lakes in the middle and eastern parts of the state, but then I kept myself busy fishing for large- and small-mouth bass, stripers and crappies.
“My fishing priorities soon changed after satisfying that customer’s needs. and I took time to research the muskie situation.”
He learned muskies were native to all of the larger streams in middle and eastern Tennessee and when TVA started damming local rivers in the early 1940s, the agency flooded the muskie spawning areas.
Fluctuating water levels made it impossible for aquatic weeds to survive in the catch-and-hold reservoirs, such as Norris, Douglas and Cherokee. But TVA created Melton Hill as a flow-through reservoir. The dam isn’t as high as those for the catch-and-hold lakes, and the Melton Hill is much narrower and water flows are more constant.
Initially, milfoil grew in some shallow areas along the shore of the lake, but it started disappearing about four years ago. Some observers believe, but it’s not confirmed, that TVA killed the milfoil. A natural dieoff of weeds could clog cooling-water intake screens and shut down a steam plant.
West attached a three-bladed spinning lure to the leader of one of his rods and cast it across the cove to a large tree that was lying in the water. After a half a dozen casts without a strike, he switched to a surface buzz bait and expanded his area of fishing, but that didn’t attract a fish, either.
“This is usually one of my better spots,” said West, as he changed to a long jerkbait. “Maybe they’re lying beneath boat docks today.”
After several unproductive casts around and beneath the dock, West decided to move.
“I think we’ll try the Jack Ass Hollow cove next,” he said. “I’ve boated several muskies there.”
As he roared down the lake toward the dam, he passed two other pairs of anglers before reaching his destination. The other anglers hadn’t caught a muskie.
West’s luck didn’t change with any of the additional lures he tried as he fished three more coves and two points before calling it a day at 2 p.m.
As he tied up at the dock, he said his largest Melton Hill muskie had been impressive.
“It was 47 inches in length,” he said. “But I’ve seen many much larger than that follow lures almost to the boat.”
West said he’d call if muskie fishing improved, and he did call the evening of October 17.
“Would you like to take another shot at muskies tomorrow?“ he said during an Oct. 17 phone call. “Yesterday my partner hooked a nice-sized muskie, but it got off before we could get it to the boat.”
When West arrived at the launch site at 8 a.m., weather conditions were much more favorable for fishing. A cold front had reduced the air temperature to 49 degrees and a heavy blanket of dark clouds covered the sky in all directions. And there was a nice chop on the lake’s surface.
There was more fishing activity. Four boats launched before West arrived.
This time, he fished up the lake toward the steam plant. But the only change from the previous attempt was a hard strike his lure received when West was casting back in the Bull Run Creek inlet. He also tried trolling for a short time, as he headed out of the Bull Run inlet but that technique produced no hits. And that’s typical muskie fishing.
During the past 40 years, TWRA has stocked muskies at over 20 streams and lakes, but Melton Hill is now the only lake receiving regular yearly stocks. The lake has given up some large muskies.
In 2002 David Blank caught a 49-incher, while Jim Blank, his brother, landed a 47-inch fish. Since then, several anglers have reported seeing muskies longer than 50 inches following their lures almost to their boats.
To its credit, the TWRA has undertaken a serious effort to make Melton Hill an even better trophy fishery. To achieve this goal, the agency plans to increase the size of muskies in the lake with a two-pronged approach — increase the minimum size of fish that can be taken and stock a sub-species that will grow larger than the Kentucky variety it’s been stocking for many years.
In 2004 the agency increased the minimum-size limit for muskies at Melton Hill from 36 to 44 inches but kept the possession limit at one fish.
Initially, TWRA tried to grow its own stocking-size muskies by stripping eggs and sperm from local fish obtained by electro-shocking and hatching the fertilized eggs at one of their local hatcheries, but that didn’t work out because of limited hatchery capacity.
“This year, the lake received 3,200 8- to 12-inches muskies from a Kentucky state hatchery, which has been our primary source for many years,” said Mike Smith, the long-time manager of the agency’s Eagle Bend hatchery near Clinton, Tenn.
“This Ohio sub-species tops out around 45 pounds while the Wisconsin sub-species is known to grow as large as 60 pounds,” Smith said.
“Last year, we obtained the Wisconsin sub-species from an Indiana state hatchery, and next year we plan to purchase more of that sub-species from an Iowa state hatchery. We shoot for around 1,500 stockers each year.”
The Tennessee state record — 42 pounds, 8 ounces — was taken from Norris Lake in 1983, but Norris has not received any muskie transplants in many years.
The largest muskie taken from Tennessee waters in recent years was a 52-incher that Steven Lowery caught while bass fishing at Great Falls Lake in Middle Tennessee in 2004.
Melton Hill is a 5,470-acre reservoir located on the Clinch River just outside the city limits of Oak Ridge. It’s one of the state’s smallest and coldest lakes, and muskies have adapted very well to its waters.
Many 40-inch-and-longer muskies are caught there each year.
James Negus, an avid muskie hunter, is the TWRA fisheries biologist who supervises muskie stockings and generally looks after Melton Hill Lake.
“I would say that this muskie fishery was discovered by striped bass anglers who fish the area around the Bull Run discharge waters a lot during the winter months,” Negus said.
“The intriguing thing about Melton Hill is you never know what you may catch, a 50-inch muskie or a 50-inch striper, both of which are numerous in the lake.
“Melton Hill has a very dense population of species and our two largest predators grow large in the reservoir because of good forage and good water quality.”
Clearly, Melton Hill is Tennessee’s most important muskie fishery, and the quality of this fishery should continue to improve.
Melton Hill muskies are dispersed throughout the lake except during winter months when prey fish concentrate at the warm waters discharged by TVA’s Bull Run Stream plant.
That’s actually the best time to try to boat a muskie, especially if you plan to fish only one or two days. Otherwise, it’s a matter of being in the right place at the time when they decide to feed or strike an artificial lure or live bait.
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