Cherokee: Winter Wonderland for Elite kickoff

Tennessee Bassmaster Elite Series pro David Walker took some time before Cherokee Lake was officially off limits to give us a tour of where the 2017 Elite Series will kick off.

This is one of Walker’s home lakes, and one he knows very personally.

Beginning in early February, the full Elite Series Field will be launching to take on a likely bitter cold Lake Cherokee.

Created by the Holston River, Lake Cherokee is one of the very first impoundments that will eventually create the Tennessee River, which holds renowned bass fisheries like Guntersville, Pickwick and Kentucky Lake.

Cherokee Dam is 52 miles upstream from the point at which the Holston and French Broad rivers converge to form the Tennessee River.

At winter pool, the lake is low exposing much of the fishable structure that summertime anglers would target. It’s full of giant boulders and rock ledges.

There are marinas, which have been known to hold good numbers of bass.

During our Tour, Walker points out an abundance of shad, which make up one of the primary species in the forage base.

There are numerous locations that hold man-made fish attracting structure.

Those ball-looking things are made of concrete and provide a safe haven that bass often use for ambushing prey. You’ll also notice brush piles placed in the mix as well. Very fishy looking stuff right there.

A closer look at the concrete balls.

This is a fine view of where the water level would be during full pool. Peak summer will have the waterline quite a ways up the bank.

Floating docks are the norm here, meant to accommodate regularly changing lake levels. This impoundment was developed as flood control for down river communities, such as Chattanooga, Tenn.

At full pool, the lake features nearly 400 miles of winding shoreline and about 28,780 acres of water surface …

Here’s an attractive looking stretch. Likely the homeowner at the top of the hill decided to make their view better and dropped a bunch of trees in the lake. That created some great fish-holding structure, but it’ll be unavailable during this year’s Bassmaster event.

In a year with normal rainfall, the water level in Cherokee Reservoir varies about 30 feet from summer to winter to provide seasonal flood storage.

Walker talked about catching fish against that white wall in the summer. Obviously, that’s a long cast on dry land during the winter, so he’ll have to look elsewhere for eagerly biting bass.

Here’s an outside look at one of the primary boat ramps near the dam.

With the extensive rock cover available on the lake, the bass have ample locations to hide, rest and feed.

There is a myriad of substraight types, structural elements and water depths. Smallmouth, largemouth and spots call this lake home, and its quite possible to see daily limits consisting of all three species of black bass.

These rocky points are numerous on the lake, and are known for stealing lures from savvy bass anglers. The rocks are very unforgiving, but hold lots of fish.

This is a great time of year to get out and view the structure that will be holding fish during the warmer months. There is so much good looking stuff in this lake, it would take years to fish it all.

There is ample places where clean transitions are made between red Tennessee clay and huge boulders.

Plenty of creeks feed the main lake surrounded by beautiful hardwoods and farm land. The lake offers spectacular views from top to bottom.

Cherokee Dam is a hydroelectric facility. It has four generating units with a net dependable capacity of 148 megawatts. Net dependable capacity is the amount of power a hydroelectric dam can produce on an average day, minus the electricity used by the dam itself. Plus, the dam offers lots of great fishing opportunities along the riprap.

Construction of Cherokee Dam began in Aug. 1, 1940, and was completed on a crash schedule on Dec. 5, 1941.

The dam is 175 feet high and stretches 6,760 feet, or well over a mile, from one end to the other.

Be sure to follow all the action once it starts February 9-12 on Tennessee’s Lake Cherokee. This will be one exciting, and likely unprecedented Bassmaster Elite Series event.