"Don't expect to get lonely fishing here," he said. "I believe this is the single most popular catfish spot in East Tennessee. Catfishing as a whole is getting very popular as fishermen discover how much fun it is. And here at Sequoyah, the action can be sensational.

"Even when there are dozens of boats in the area, there are times when everyone is catching catfish," Simms said. "This is as good a catfish factory as I've seen. It's not always that productive, but during the summer, it is certainly one spot that catfishermen need to consider."

The average size of catfish Simms expects to catch on either the tailwaters or lake is in the 5- to 15-pound class. However, he hooks into a number of much larger fish, with one of his customers landing a 54-pound blue last year. Fish over 20 pounds are not unusual. A typical day's catch may vary with the year, he said, but generally, he'll expect to catch 100 pounds of fish or more on most days.

"This seems to be linked to water flow again," he said. "If we have consistently good current, like we did in 2006, we were catching about 300 pounds of fish per day on rod and reel. But during the drought summer of 2007, it was more like 100 pounds a day. But that's still a lot of fishing action on quality-sized catfish.

"Most of my clients were absolutely thrilled with the action we had last year," Simms said. "While I had been spoiled from the previous year, this is still excellent fishing for a few hours of effort. It is amazing to many people how many catfish we have in Chickamauga Lake and the tailwaters."

You can contact Simms for an exciting catfish adventure at Richard@ScenicCityFishing.com or call (423) 894-3684. His Web site is loaded with information and can be found at www.sceniccityfishing.com.

OLD HICKORY
Moving to the mid-state area, we'll look at another lake that consistently produces excellent summertime catfishing action. Old Hickory has a good population of the major species of catfish and much of the fishing in the lake is similar to that found on Chickamauga. However, there is one difference between the two fisheries that is of practical importance to an angler's strategy at Old Hickory: The depths being fished here are generally less extreme than at Chickamauga.

While the entire lake is certainly productive during July and throughout the summer, the area from the dam up to the Gallatin Steam Plant discharge is the stretch that most catfishermen fish on a regular basis.

Most of the action will be on the main river portion of the lake. While you'll make catfish catches in the major creeks, such as Cedar, Drakes, Spencer and Station Camp, the bigger catfish will be on the river channel during the summer.

At each of the above creek and river channel junctions, you'll have a potentially good catfish hole.

In addition, Old Hickory has dozens of small feeder creek junctions with the main river that are potentially very productive.