The bass fishing world was buzzing in 2018 when Bassmaster Magazine declared Chickamauga Lake the second best bass fishing lake in the entire nation. However in the 2019 Bassmaster Top 100 Best Bass Lakes rankings, Bassmaster decided that the bass fishing on Chickamauga Lake either got worse or other lakes have gotten better. Chickamauga Lake has dropped to Number Six this year with its neighbor to the south, Guntersville Lake, claiming the Number Two spot.
Bassmaster officials say a field of experts spent two months reviewing biological data and tournament results before arriving at its Top 100 best bass fishing lakes.
Alabama’s Guntersville Lake had been down in the Bassmaster rankings for several years, actually falling completely out of the Top 10 in both 2016 and 2017. It climbed to Number Nine in 2018. The Bassmaster news release said it “took the No. 2 spot after producing several 30-plus-pound limits this spring. That said, the Big G was producing so many 20-pound limits that a 4-pound average quit turning heads.”