Pickwick is best known for its smallmouths, but local anglers, like guide Roger Gant, know that crappie fishing is outstanding on this impoundment. Photo by Jeff Samsel.

In one sense, a calendar shows a multitude of days to go fishing -- 365 each year. Looking more closely, however, most folks' calendars stay pretty crowded, between work days, family plans and other obligations. What that means is that when anglers do get the opportunity to get out on the water, they want to make the very best decisions about how to use that time.

In Tennessee, great angling opportunities abound and are widely varied, which is both good and bad for fishermen making plans. It's great to be able to go so many different directions and enjoy good fishing prospects, but all those choices make the decisions extra difficult. We've put together a whole year's worth of selections to help make the decision-making process a little easier. Destinations are spread from the mountains to West Tennessee and include everything from crappie to super-sized blue catfish.

JANUARY
Stripers: Chickamauga Lake
Winter conditions congregate baitfish and therefore stack up stripers in a few key areas of Chickamauga Lake, creating good potential for fast fishing action. Cold water spread through most of the lake causes fish to pile up in the deep water near Chickamauga Dam, in the tailwater of Watts Bar Dam and in waters warmed by outflows from the Sequoyah Nuclear Station The baitfish seek thermal refuge in all three areas, and the stripers feast on huge buffets created by the forage concentrations.

The tailwater section is best when plenty of water is running. Anglers begin as far upstream as current security levels allow boaters to go and then drift downstream, bumping live bait or bucktails on three-way rigs off the bottom. A vast area downriver of the nuclear plant can be affected by discharges. The most drastic and obvious effect is close to the plant, but even a few degrees difference in waters farther down the lake makes a big difference. Anglers need to make good use of their electronics, looking at temperature readings and seeking baitfish concentrations. In the lower end of the lake, the bait will be fairly close to the dam, and the stripers will hold immediately beneath them.

Anglers rely primarily on live threadfin shad for January striper fishing. Rigging varies quite a bit from one area to the other and according to how deep the baitfish are holding. Some anglers also like to put out a couple of live gizzard shad or skipjack to target Chickamauga's biggest stripers.

FEBRUARY
Crappie: Lake Barkley
February always brings a few strings of sunny days that get crappie and crappie fishermen fired up, and Lake Barkley certainly is a destination that anglers can get fired up about. Although less famous for its slabs that neighboring Kentucky Lake has, Barkley consistently serves up heavyweight crappie.

Most crappie fishermen like the section between Dover and the Kentucky line, where the lake opens up a bit and contains more backwaters that are adjacent to the main channel. During strings of sunny days, fish will move up onto flats that are near deep water and will feed amazingly shallow. During colder days, most anglers concentrate efforts in the mouths of big creeks and bays and out on the main-river channel.

Most anglers use one of two general methods (although there are endless variations of both). Either they troll slowly with several jigs or minnows or both spread around the boat or they set up over sunken cover and fish vertically, keeping the bait as close to the cover as possible. Either way, they pay careful attention to their electronics as they fish and adjust strategies based on what they see.

MARCH
Smallmouths: South Holston Lake
While March suggests spring to a lot of Tennessee anglers, mountain lakes remain cold through most of the month, and float-and-fly enthusiasts spend as many days out as they possibly can, trying to get in their last licks. March produces some beautiful bronzebacks on this lake, which is deep and very clear. Anglers also catch a lot of rainbows while "bobber fishing" for smallies.

Flies, as the little hair jigs featured in this approach are most commonly called, are fished several feet beneath floats on light spinning tackle and cast with very long rods. Smallmouths suspend in schools of baitfish during the winter, and the flies suspend among them, doing enticing little dances when anglers shake their rod tips.

Late March sometimes will usher in some spring patterns. Anglers will turn to cranking bluffs in the vicinity of gravel bars and yanking jerkbaits over the edges of the sandbars for pre-spawn smallmouths. Many veteran smallmouth fishermen agree that the pre-spawn period provides an angler his best opportunity of the year to catch a truly massive smallmouth bass.

APRIL
Largemouths: Kentucky Lake
April brings spring into full swing and puts largemouths on the prowl. Kentucky Lake, which went through some down years beginning in the late '90s, has been on the comeback for the past few seasons and now supports a great population of quality largemouths. During April, the fish can be caught from the backs of the bays all the way to the Tennessee River channel, depending on conditions and an angler's fishing-style preferences.

High water levels, stained water and warming trends all tend to push the bass shallow this time of year, and when the lake is at full, a lot of bass will be deep in bushes, creating great conditions for flippin' and pitchin'. Steady current in the main river and fairly clear water bring on the best open-river bite, with fish holding tight to humps and points and hammering crankbaits and Carolina rigs.

In between those extremes, anglers often enjoy great fishing during April by simply working obvious shoreline cover in major creeks and cuts off the main lake with spinnerbaits and plastic worms. Through the lower main body and over secondary points in the same section of the lake, bass anglers often pick up smallmouths as they fish.