The grass on Old Hickory still plays a significant role, and St. John said the lake has excellent nursery habitat for largemouth bass fry, providing food and shelter critical to year-class formation. As we anglers know, milfoil also provides excellent habitat for older bass, enabling them to be more efficient predators.

St. John said he thinks milfoil will remain in Old Hickory. Its abundance will change from year to year due to water clarity, which in turn is dependent on rainfall. Milfoil will be more abundant during drier or drought years.

For now, according to creel reports, St. John said Old Hickory Lake is the cream of the crop in Tennessee.

Biologists use spring electrofishing catch rates (number of largemouths sampled per hour) as a measure of bass abundance. The 2003 catch rate was 188 bass per hour, also highest among sampled lakes. St. John said that equates to dipping one largemouth every 20 seconds.

Total sample time was 3 hours, 45 minutes.

As he put it, "That is a lot of bass!"

The catch rate in 2004 remained high at 150 largemouth bass per hour.

Also, electrofishing catch rates of largemouths greater than or equal to 15 inches are indicative of the abundance of preferred size bass. Old Hickory's catch rate for bass over 15 inches has been 30 per hour since 2001. These larger bass may be harder to catch due to the excellent oxygen concentration from lake bottom to surface throughout the year.

On up the TWRA ladder, Tim Churchill, Reservoir Program Coordinator, said their creel survey does little to evaluate fishing quality, but the catch rates were up near the top end of values for the state in 2003. The TWRA's BITE program data (Bass Information from Tournament Entries) showed the lake in the upper 50 percent of lakes surveyed for number of hours required to catch a bass 5 pounds or larger, but nowhere near the top.

Churchill said St. John's sampling shows that the lake has one of the best bass size distributions in the state, but the fact that anglers in tournaments need to put in relatively long hours to catch large fish may reflect just how tough the lake can be to fish. He added cold water from upstream and patchy distribution of physical habitat may be some reasons many of our best bass anglers find it hard to learn how to find the big ones on Old Hickory.

ON THE WATER
Guide Jim Duckworth spends a lot of time talking to and even fishing with TWRA biologists. His testing methods vary just a little from biologists, though: For the most part, Duckworth's sampling of the bass population involves using a bait with red treble hooks on it.

Duckworth said May tends to be the prime spawning month for Old Hickory largemouth bass. He's also quick to tell you fish don't have calendars, but this month can be the best of the year when normal weather conditions exist.

His experience tells him that deep water has to warm up first for bass to get active and move to shallower habitat. The amount of sunlight has a huge impact on the surface temperature in early spring. The temperature Duckworth is looking for is 62 degrees.

The first pre-spawn action can be found in mouths of creeks and in creek channels next to spring flats and shallow bays in 3 to 5 feet of water.

When the water hits that temperature, an angler can have great "numbers" days on the lake because this is when bass make their first real moves to the shallows. They are feeding, and become susceptible to the action of a crankbait.