[baxterboy]

A friend of mine from work named Matt, his father-in-law Randall, and I spent the day on Dale Hollow with Dave from trolldhl.com (screen name fishfindergeneral on this site) Matt and Dave's kids play on the same soccer team here in town, and after reading fishfindergeneral's posts on this site, I've been wanting to make a trip up to Dale Hollow to see if the rumors (world-class fishery, 18 inch SM are common, etc.) were true. We met Dave at the ramp at 6AM for a full day of fishing. The lake was extremely high, and we had to dodge some debris while we trolled, but despite the conditions, we had a great day with 5 personal bests.
Matt caught his personal best rainbow and a beautiful 21 inch Tennessee Angler Recognition Program (TARP) smallie, Randall bagged a 20 inch TARP smallie and a monster TARP rainbow with a 15.5 inch girth, and I got some really nice bows and a 19 inch smallie. I had a whale rainbow trout spit the hook about 5 feet from the net. Attached are 2 pics of the best rainbows we had all day which are now in our freezers. We'll probably be eating trout fillets for weeks. My camera wasn't working earlier in the day when we caught the smallies, so I'll try to post those pics when Dave gets back online and emails them to me. As if the fishing weren't enough, we saw a couple of bald eagles soar above the boat and perch high on a bluff.

-James