In early June on the Tennessee River the bass are just finishing spawning and are beginning to move to the river ledges. I planned on spending all my practice time on the main river fishing ledges, and I did. After three days of fishing ledges up river and down with Large cranks, spoons and jigs I finally developed a strong cranking pattern on main river shell beds up river from Paris.

Day 1 was a great day! I cranked up over 26 pounds using my RPM 7’11 MH cranking rod. I was throwing big Bomber cranks on 10 pound Gamma fluorocarbon line, long casts were very important along with strong line that can hold up to shell beds and big large heads!

Day 2 was a struggle we had rainy weather and my best spot went bad, I weighed in just over 18 pounds and fell out of fifth place.

Day 3 the weather went back to sunny and hot! I was struggling at noon with a small limit but kept moving to more spots that I had found in practice. The big bights finally came and I weighed in over 24 pounds! And moved up to 8th place!

Day 4 I am now fishing in the top 12 and it is still hot and sunny. I keep my cranking rod slinging but once again the fish are not big enough, I keep moving and eventually I find another school on 2 new spots and again I weigh in over 24 pounds. I ended up with over 88 pounds for a fifth place finish all on a long 7’11” RPM Cranking rod and big crank bait. It was very hot and it was a lot of work, but man I caught the heck out of those Tennessee large heads!

Remember to get off shore and find those shell beds during the summer months and keep moving. If the fish are there you can make them bight, if not move to another spot and return latter to see if the school has returned or moved up.

Good luck on the Tennessee River!

Rick Morris