East Tennessee Outdoors: Wilbur Lake Trout – Part 1
Published 6:00 am Monday, August 12, 2019
- Photo courtesy of TVA The fish can be hard to catch on Wilbur Lake, but if you know a few of its secrets, you can take home a limit.
BY DANNY BLEVINS
STAR CORRESPONDENT
There are certain days that just stand out in your life, and when you remember them, they bring a smile to your face.
Personally, I can remember the day I fell in love with my wife, our wedding day and the days my grandchildren were born.
But being an outdoorsman, I can also tell you about the first fish I caught, the first deer I killed and the first turkey I brought home.
I can also tell you the best day of trout fishing I have ever had. I fished for four hours and took home seven rainbow trout between 17 and 22 inches long. The fishery was Wilbur Lake.
Before Watauga Lake, Boone Reservoir or South Holston Lake were built or had even entered the mind of an engineer, there was Wilbur Lake.
Built in 1912 and bought by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1945, Wilbur is the second oldest lake in the TVA system surpassed only by Ocoee Dam. Though it only covers 72 acres of surface area, this little lake is one of the best trout fisheries in East Tennessee.
The lake is stocked each year with thousands of brown and rainbow trout, and its cold water allows the fish to spawn on their own.
Though you may catch a few lake trout in this water, the fish that you will encounter the most are rainbows, and if you fish for them correctly, you can catch fish at any time of the day and any day of the year.
In fact, some of the larger fish are caught during the coldest months of the year.
Wilbur is one of the hardest lakes to fish that I have ever fished. The lake is very cold, can be very shallow, depending on the generating schedule, and the fish in the lake can be very finicky.
I usually fish with bait on this water and there are times you will catch fish on nightcrawlers, red worms, mill worms, salmon eggs, power baits or corn, depending on what the fish want that given day.
The lake bottom has grass and weeds in places and many trout in this water will not hit a fly, crank bait or spinner that would work on other trout waters.
Throw in the fact that there are fish in this water between 20 and 30 inches long (one was caught a few years ago that went 32 inches), and you have a fishery that can be exciting to fish but a challenge for the most experienced angler.
There are three key things to remember about fishing Wilbur Lake.
First, remember the water temperature is very cold. The water that creates Wilbur comes out of the bottom of Watauga Lake, and the water temperature at that depth can be 40 degrees or less.
The lake is so cold the fish will not chase baits like they do in most rivers and streams. This also means there are not any bait fish in the lake except trout minnows.
There are times that crank baits will work well, though, if you use trout imitations and fish them slowly. The bigger fish can be caught on these imitations.
The largest trout I ever caught out of Wilbur was 24 inches long and I caught it on a Rapala’s brown trout imitation plug.
I caught it when the fish were not biting any other lure that I threw at them.
Also remember the old adage- large lures usually give you large fish. For example, I was using a size 9 in the Rapala lure when I caught that 24-inch fish.
Wilbur Lake can be a joy to trout fish if you know some of its secrets. We will explore a few more of these secrets that can help you catch more fish on Wilbur Lake in next week’s East Tennessee Outdoors column.
