West Point

[IKWAK]

I am wanting to take my 7 year old fishing at West Point as soon as we get some decent weather. I have never been there nor do I know anything about it. Anyone have any areas they recommend? Not wanting specifics. Just trying to put him on a couple fish. Bream, crappie, Bass, I don’t really care. Thanks in advance.

 

[Cedarridge Tomcat]

The ballpark area along the river in Franklin would be a good place to start, lots of bank access and more fish should be starting to ease up into this area soon. Plus, there is a playground to spend some quality time in, if the bite gets real slow!!

 

[Dustin Pate]

I am wanting to take my 7 year old fishing at West Point as soon as we get some decent weather. I have never been there nor do I know anything about it. Anyone have any areas they recommend? Not wanting specifics. Just trying to put him on a couple fish. Bream, crappie, Bass, I don’t really care. Thanks in advance.

Do you have a boat?

 

[IKWAK]

Sorry I forgot to say that we will be fishing in our boat

 

[ryork]

If you want to go for bass, and particularly during a warming trend in early Feb, I would find some riprap banks or chunk rock/gravel points or read clay banks that are getting sunlight on them for a good part or most all of the day. Throw a bandit or shad rap type crankbait or a lipless rattling bait up to the rocks and work it slowly back. Yellowjacket or Whitewater Creeks or at the mouths of pockets going upriver from Highland area. I had good look yo-yoing a lipless ratting bait over the years when it's still relatively cold early in the Spring. Basically throw something like a rat-l-trap up shallow, let is sink and then slowly hop it back almost like a worm or jig.

For crappie, would look in the larger coves and small creeks upriver from Highland to around the 219 bridge and troll jigs or slowly move with minnows under floats at varying depths until you find what is working. This would work in the bigger creeks downlake too. Not saying its the best area, but I do most of my crappie fishing in the back half of Yellow Jacket creek, upstream of Sunny Point access this time of year downlake, and uplake I really like those small feeder creeks around the Wolf and Whitley Creek areas upriver. The areas that can be fished in those areas would be somewhat confined now with the water level still 4.5-5 ft below pool.

With all the rain that is forecast and relatively warm temps, would think shallower fish than you might normally expect with still cold water temps.

 

[mizzippi jb]

Do you have a boat?

I would fish with this s guy a few days. He can help y'all stack em up.

 

[IKWAK]

Ryork, thanks for the help. Hopefully we will get to head down there in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Dustin Pate]

Ryork gave some great info.

The crappie are quickly moving shallow. There are a lot of fish in the 10-12 ft range right now. I was personally catching them in 3-4 ft upriver on Saturday. If you aren't set up for trolling, then your prime time will be around the full moons coming up in March. The fish will be on the banks and very easy to target around any structure.

The lineside run is also about to start and that is a great way to get a kid on big numbers of fun fish. The river from Ringer to Franklin is ground zero for this action. You will need to be a little careful if running a boat in the is area for the first time. You can do a search on here and get tons of info on this type of fishing.

 

[IKWAK]

Thanks guys. I truly appreciate all the info. I’ll post pics after we go