Cheatham County Exchange
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Don’t skip the skipjacks




Tennessee Tarpon make fun fishing. By Larry Woody

Their official name is skipjack herring.

But they are better known as Tennessee Tarpon because their iridescent scales, streamlined body and head-shaking, tail-dancing antics are identical to the giant tarpon that inhabit brackish inlets.

They’re also called “fun,” which is why most fishermen fish for them.

Skipjacks aren’t fit to eat but they’re a delight to catch. They hit hard and fight hard, and many a fishermen has been excited, thinking he’s hooked onto a big bass or stripe, until the glistening torpedo breaks water.

Skipjacks are a go-to fish. They’ll hit when nothing else will, and many a fishless trip has been livened up by a school of rod-bending skipjacks.

One spring a fishing buddy in East Tennessee invited me to join him at Melton Hill Dam to fish for skipjacks. They were schooling by the thousands in the roiling tailwaters, and we had a ball catching them on fly rods and streamer flies.

A two-pound skipjack fights as hard as a two-pound rainbow trout, with similar acrobatics. The world record skipjack was caught in 2015 in Watts Bar Reservoir and weighed a whopping four pounds, three ounces.

In addition to being hard fighters, skipjacks can be caught year-round, from the frigid depths of winter through the balmy days of spring and on into the steamy Dog Days of summer. They inhabit the swirling waters below dams and the mouths of feeder streams.

No fancy lures are required. Skipjacks feed on minnows and will hit anything vaguely resembling them. If it flashes or flutters, skipjacks will attack it. My favorite skipjack lure is also my favorite white bass lure – an eighth ounce Road Runner spinner with a white or chartreuse Twister Tail.

The versatile jig can be fished fast or slow, deep or shallow, and will entice everything from skipjacks to stripe, bass and crappie.

Although most humans don’t care for the taste of skipjacks, catfish find them yummy. So much so that there’s a limit of 100 per day to prevent their being over-harvested for commercial bait.

How effective are skipjacks for catfish? The state record blue cat (118 pounds) was caught on a skipjack chunk.

In the spring when the stripe and skipjack both are running, some fishermen stock up on the latter, freezing them for later catfishing.

With skipjacks, catching the bait is half the fun.