Fishing for Jack Salmon in mid-January isn’t all fun and entertainment. In the midst of the longest cold snap northern Alabama has seen in decades, I was sitting in a boat in the middle of the Tennessee River, freezing my toes.
Jack Salmon, actually Sauger, seem to bite the most on the coldest, grayest days of winter on their way upstream to spawn. This is the time of year that they congregate below the dams on the river. I know for a fact that there are many Saugers in the tailwaters of the Guntersville, Wheeler and Wilson Dams because I have caught many of them in those waters.
Although the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has dams in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, I know little of the Jack Salmons who have escaped through the Alabama locks and currently reside in Tennessee.
This particular morning, I was trying to pour coffee from the thermos into my mug without spilling it on my bait and was trying to avoid tangling my line that was in the bottom of the boat under my feet. Attached to the end of the line was a large one ounce chartreuse and blue jig with a medium sized shiny minnow on the tip.
We were about 2 miles downstream from Guntersville Dam, near the mouth of the Paint Rock River. The water was a bit high but not high enough to damage the catch. As we searched for a place to start drifting, we counted 26 boats anchored in places where they were fishing.
Most of the anglers used the same type of bait that I used and fished 35-40 feet deep. Every few minutes, someone on one of those boats would bring in a Jack that weighed between one and three pounds. Alabama’s record was over five pounds, caught on the same type of bait he was using.
I remember the first Sauger I caught as a kid. My Uncle Grady, on my mother’s side, and I were fishing below the Guntersville Dam, by the wall that separated the turbines from the spillways. Droplets of water hit us in the face as the wind blew the mist from the turbines into our face.
I don’t remember the month, but I can still see that 12-year-old boy shivering in the cold and trying to pretend he wasn’t freezing. My discomfort only lasted a few minutes because we immediately started fishing and forgot about the cold. They were unlike any fish he had caught before. They were cigar or torpedo shaped with large brown spots on each side. They also had a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. My uncle said Jack Salmon was the best fish in the river. He was correct!
We used live minnows weighing two ounces to carry the bait to where the fish were, near the wing wall of the dam. In those days we didn’t use fish baskets to store our catch, but after a few hours our stringer was full and we ran out of bait.
Over the years, I have fished Sauger, a member of the perch family, many times. Sometimes I was lucky and caught some, sometimes I didn’t. If you can handle the elements and really want to catch these fish, head to the Tennessee River in Alabama. You will find Jack Salmon under any of these three large dams.