Charles B. Summers wrote:
Gonna have to look at that on my map. What is the make-up of the lake? Rock,
weed, grass??? Deep, shallow?


Charles,

The vast majority of the water is shallow as the Lake was formed when
they put in all of the TVA dams back in the 30's. The main river
channel is around 35 feet and still has barge traffic on it daily, but
the edge of the channel is 5 feet or less and it is almost a mile in
both directions before you hit shore! Down at the lower end of the lake
there is deeper water but toward the upstream direction it is shallower.
It is this way for about 30 miles of the river channel from just north
of the city of Guntersville all the way up to almost Chattanooga. All
along this shallow section grows milfoil and hydrilla grass. These
weeds provide great cover for all game fish especially bass and have
contributed greatly to the really large numbers of big fish there. In
2004, the BASS tourney there the 4 day total to win was 99lbs! George
Cochran caught 4, 5 fish limits that were only a few ounces short of 100
lbs! This year Zell Rowland won with 88lbs I think. A lot of the areas
that were flooded when the lake was formed were forest. These areas
were cut down to the stump level and left, so there are huge flats of
stumps and in the warmer months these flats get covered with the milfoil
and hydrilla combo. Any depth of water less than 10' has some form of
vegetation growing on it. The other thing about the weeds is they act
like a huge filter for the water...it is usually pretty clear. In the
spring it can get dingy depending on the rain. Like I said in the other
post...I grew up fishing Guntersville back in the late 60's and early
70's..before the grass became so dominant and it was a good lake to
fish, but nothing like it is now. Sorry for the long post but Its a
great lake!

BD