Misguided Fishing Dale Hollow

Move the misguided story to Tennessee. Dale Hollow Lake sits on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It is a 27,700 acre lake. Its advertisement says “Dale Hollow is the current world record holder for smallmouth bass”. Don had read about the smallies, and suggested a trip. I had recently purchased a boat, so we headed there. It was a long 400 mile journey through the Kentucky Hills.

Don had made arrangements with the best known guide in the area. Bob was so famous, his picture was painted on the side of a building in the local town. He knew everyone, had terrific reviews, and knew all the best places to stay and to eat.

Bob had made arrangements for a cabin for us and scheduled an early morning at the boat ramp. Bob said to arrive at 6:00 am our time. Bob thought Illinois was in a different time zone, so we waited an extra hour for him to arrive. An omen?

Bob arrived with a big bass boat with a giant orange "T" on the motor. You know, like the one Bill Dance wears on his hat. I don't think Bob actually attended college, or even high school. We headed out in Bob’s boat using his equipment. We began by casting for bass. No smallies, but we did see some gars floating on the surface. We changed lures, we trolled, we jigged, and we changed locations. Nothing.

We ate our lunches in the boat. Bob changed tactics. He set his trolling motor to follow the contour of a drop off. Nothing. We moved near the deep water by the dam. Fish were on the scope, but no bites.

This went on until 5:00 pm. After eleven hours we had not one bite. Finally Bob said, “We have to catch something. I will take you to a place for crappies”

So we moved into a cove and he actually sat the boat in the branches of a tree. We couldn’t stand or cast, but we could jig. Jigs didn’t work, so we added night crawlers. Nothing.

As darkness began to close in we headed back to the ramp. Don and I got out our cash to pay him, but Bob refused our money. Don even offered pay for gas. Bob said no, he wouldn’t take money for no fish.

We took Bob’s recommendation for a pizza place. It was late when we arrived. The waitress was not more than thirty, and took our order. We waited and waited. The waitress’s son, a high school kid, stopped in the restaurant and left with a pizza. This caused us to speculate that in Tennessee they must start having babies around age 14.

We waited some more. After an hour, we decided the high school kid must have taken our pizza. We ordered something else and left. Not the best way to end an already shitty day.

The next morning we took my boat out on Dale Hollow. We tried different coves as well as some of the same coves. We threw every type of lure we had and Don has a lot of lures. Not one strike. After fishing all day, we headed back to the cabin for beer.

We stayed overnight and left for home early in the morning. We stopped in Kentucky for breakfast. The red headed waitress was very sweet to Don. I guess red heads have some type of mutual admiration society. It was the nicest part of the trip.

We have never been back to Dale Hollow.

 Bob no longer guides.