This spring, the Tennessee River gave up a number of trophy catches and tales of massive tournament weights, spread throughout the Southeast. Steve Coursey of Whitwell, Tenn., topped them all on May 20 when he pulled a new state record black buffalo, weighing in at exactly 58 pounds, from the upper end of Nickajack Lake in the tailwaters of Chickamauga Dam.
Putting in at 7 a.m. with his friend and fishing partner of 46 years, Winston Lewis, Coursey was out for a relaxing day on the water, looking to catch some bass, as they had many times before. They spent the day moving up and down the river, fishing docks, piers and some of their favorite honey holes; 3 p.m. found them casting the banks about halfway between the Chickamauga Dam and Veterans Bridge in downtown Chattanooga. Coursey was using a Hot Perch Salmo Hornet lure with his St. Croix rod and Penn reel spooled with 8-pound Stren when the buffalo hit.
“I thought, ‘It’s a smallmouth, a good one,’” Coursey recalled. “I told Winston to get the net, and then it started running … I told him to crank up the big motor, it’s going to spool me.”
The fish ran upriver about 100 yards, turned around and took the anglers back downriver to the original hole. Every time Coursey would get the buffalo up close, it would pull more line off the reel. Even upon seeing the fish, Coursey still didn’t know what he had hooked into. This went on for what he guessed was about 45 minutes before Coursey called Lewis up to the front deck with their not-nearly-large-enough bass net. Once they had the head of this massive buffalo in the net, they both grabbed a side of the net and hauled it onboard. According to Coursey, Lewis’ first words were, “You might have a state record.” Read more….