The first lake ever to be created by the Tennessee Valley Authority, Norris Lake was built in 1936 with the completion of the Norris Dam. The dam impounded the Clinch and Powell rivers, two major tributaries that feed the Tennessee River.
The resulting reservoir near Knoxville is sprawling and massive. Norris Lake covers 34,200 acres at full pool, and its meandering shoreline spans 806 miles. The impoundment reaches 72 miles up the Clinch River and stretches 56 miles up the Powell River.
The fishing in Norris Lake is excellent, but this lake is a bit different from typical Tennessee reservoirs. Because of its age, it’s less fertile and has less well-defined structure than many lakes.
Norris Lake is also atypically clear, which necessitates finesse fishing much of the time. Fluctuating water levels are another wild card, oscillating as much as 45 feet between winter lows and summer highs.
All of that being said, Norris Lake is still one of the best and most unique places to fish in Tennessee. Both largemouth and smallmouth bass provide outstanding fishing opportunities, and the lake is stocked annually with striped bass and walleye.
Black Bass
Norris Lake has a well-deserved reputation as one of Tennessee’s best bass lakes. Smallmouth bass are especially abundant, with plenty of chunky 3- to 5-pound bronzebacks to go around. Largemouth bass are also fairly common, but they’re secondary here.
With clear water, lots of rocky structure, and abundant forage in the form of crayfish and shad, smallmouths have everything they need to thrive.
There are spotted bass here, too, but they’re relatively few in number and modest in size.
Norris Lake is a sprawling reservoir with so many arms, creeks and coves that it can be hard to know where to start. Smallmouth bass are widespread throughout the lake, with great fishing in both the Powell and Clinch River arms and in major creeks like Cove Creek.
But some of the best smallmouth action is in the big, open area at the heart of the lake, which some folks call the Loyston Sea. Its complex underwater landscape of rocky points, channels and sunken islands makes it smallmouth central.
Crankbaits and blade baits like Silver Buddies are favorite offerings for big bass here, and float-n-fly rigs are often employed to catch smallmouths specifically. Fishing the points and pockets along steep, windswept rocky banks is productive most of the year.
Bass fishing at Norris Lake can be good in any season, but it’s really off the charts in springtime. Throughout April, bass will be in various stages of pre-spawn and spawn around the lake.
The spawn is the season when the best fishing is in the creeks. Bass won’t all be in the same spawning stage at once, so start at the mouth of a creek and work your way in, fishing secondary points and eventually the backs of creeks where bass spawn.
As spawning wraps up in May, shift your focus to flats and gravel points extending into the main channel. Jerkbaits and jigs work well in summertime, and topwater action often starts to pick up in fall.
If you’d rather target Norris Lake’s often-overlooked largemouth bass, the best way to do that is to stick to the creeks. There isn’t a ton of vegetation here, but abundant laydowns along the banks provide great largemouth habitat.
Big, Cedar and Cove creeks have a lot of shoreline timber and excellent offshore structure. Many drawdown areas along the shoreline have been planted with water willows and black cypress trees, which offer great bass habitat when water levels are up.
Top largemouth baits include Carolina-rigged lizards, wacky worms and soft jerkbaits like Zoom Flukes. Spinnerbaits are great in the backs of creeks, which may be more stained than the main lake.
Striped Bass
Like most Clinch and Tennessee River reservoirs, Norris Lake has been stocked with striped bass for decades. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) stocks about 100,000 fingerling stripers at Norris annually.
The lake has earned a reputation as one of the best striper lakes in the state for both numbers and size. Fish in the 10- to 15-pound range are abundant, and catching stripers up to 30 pounds is not unusual. Occasional giants get even bigger.
Though Norris Lake isn’t the most fertile of Tennessee’s major reservoirs, it still supports enough shad and alewives to keep its stripers well-fed. Throughout most of the year, the movements of stripers are closely tied to those of their preferred forage.
That means you can catch stripers year-round if you know where to look. Summer and winter are arguably the two best seasons, though each requires a different approach.
Summer is one of the easiest times to find stripers, as Norris Lake stratifies and a thermocline develops. When that happens, most stripers stick to the lower end of the lake near the dam, where temperatures and oxygen levels are most agreeable.
Start by identifying the depth of the thermocline on your electronics (it’s often quite deep on Norris Lake, typically 30 to 35 feet). Next, troll baits and lures near the edges of the main river channel just above the thermocline.
The ideal bait is a live shad or alewife. Downriggers are often employed to get the bait down to the appropriate depth for trolling, but many anglers also drift or freeline shad. Others catch stripers on bucktails, curly tail grubs and swimbaits.
Fall can offer great fishing, but the tricky part is finding stripers. With forage scattered, temperatures falling and oxygen levels stabilized, they can be virtually anywhere. By winter, you’ll start to see more and more stripers concentrating on the upper end of Norris Lake.
The entire stretch between Hickory Star Marina and the Route 33 bridge on the Clinch River arm, along with the Point 19 and Lost Creek areas, can be productive.
Avoid fishing too deep this season. When the water is cool, stripers will be in the upper part of the water column, often 10 to 20 feet down, and sometimes willing to take a topwater bait right at the surface.
Another good time of year to target striped bass on Norris Lake is early spring when instinct tells them to attempt to spawn. Stripers generally push up the Clinch and Powell Rivers in April, and the lake headwaters can be productive this season.
Crappie
Norris Lake is generally regarded as a solid crappie lake, though perhaps not quite a top-tier lake on par with heavy hitters like Reelfoot Lake or Kentucky Lake. A limiting factor here is a lack of quality spawning habitat.
The lake’s advanced age has reduced the availability of cover, and fluctuations in water level sometimes make prime spawning areas unavailable at crucial times.
If that sounds discouraging, rest assured that it’s not all bad news. Norris Lake does have a lot of crappies, and anglers catch some good-sized fish here. The TWRA has been working to improve the fishery for years.
That effort includes stocking around 100,000 black crappies in Norris Lake every year and placing brush piles and other habitat structures in the lake. When water levels permit, the vast areas of water willow and bald cypress in drawdown areas also provide prime crappie habitat.
The best way to ensure success when crappie fishing at Norris Lake is to be in the right place at the right time. That generally means heading to the lake’s feeder creeks in springtime.
Some of the best areas are Big Creek, Davis Creek, and Big Sycamore Creek, along with the upper reaches of the Clinch and Powell rivers. From late winter into early spring, crappies should be gradually inching their way closer and closer to the backs of the creeks.
March and April are prime months. Live minnows tend to produce the best results, but 1/8 and 1/16-ounce tube jigs in chartreuse and black also do the trick. Look for woody cover in shallow water, including sunken timber, laydowns and brush piles.
Crappies disperse in summer, but some anglers do manage to catch them during the warmer months. The best approach is to fish after dark around the mouths of creeks, using lights over the side of the boat. Lights attract plankton, which attract baitfish, which attract crappies.
Other Fish Species
Norris Lake offers a very wide range of fishing opportunities. In addition to the species listed above and below, the lake supports non-game species like carp, buffalo and freshwater drum, along with panfish, including bluegill, redear sunfish and rock bass.
Also, the Clinch River tailwater below the Norris Dam is among Tennessee’s top trout waters.
Walleye
Norris Lake is stocked heavily with walleye, sustaining one of the better walleye fisheries in Tennessee.
Anglers catch a lot of healthy fish weighing 3 to 5 pounds and up. That said, walleye often prove elusive and are some of the most difficult fish to catch here consistently.
Spring is the best season, with fall being a close second. One important thing to keep in mind is that regardless of the time of year, the best walleye fishing is almost always at dusk and after dark.
In February and March, walleye will head up the Clinch and Powell rivers to spawn. Trolling at the lake’s headwaters is the best approach this time of year, especially on the Clinch River arm up around US-25E and the former Beech Grove boat ramp.
From April through June, walleye prowl rocky shorelines after dark. Areas where the rising water is starting to inundate weeds and brush are especially productive. Many of these areas will produce results again in the fall as the water level comes back down again.
Walleye will often bite suspending jerkbaits like Rapala Husky Jerks. Jigs work well too, and tipping your jig with a worm or live minnow can help when the bite is slow. The night of the full moon each month is usually the best time to be on the water.
Catch More Walleye
Catfish
Norris Lake isn’t known for big catfish quite like some other Tennessee River impoundments, and serious catfish anglers often overlook it in favor of other nearby lakes. But there are some decent cats to be caught.
One reason the lake gets passed over is that there aren’t really any blue catfish here. But the lake supports a healthy channel catfish population, and channels tend to get bigger here without competition from blues. Plenty of them weigh 8 to 10 pounds.
A good time to catch channel cats is late spring and early summer, when they head to riprap and rocky shorelines to spawn. But channel catfish bite readily on cut baits and chicken livers all summer long.
Cast bait on a Santee rig or slip bobber rig from just about any of the lake’s bank fishing access sites, and you’re likely to catch a few. They bite best at night, but cloudy days are often just as productive.
There are also some monster flathead catfish in Norris Lake, including some over 40 pounds. Flatheads feed almost exclusively at night, and many anglers catch them by setting jug lines or trotlines baited with live bluegill, shad, and small carp overnight.
Planning Your Trip
There are plenty of amenities that cater to anglers around Norris Lake. That includes several bait and tackle shops nearby, around 20 marinas on the lakeshore, and numerous campgrounds and RV parks within a 10-minute drive of the water.
Norris Lake gets a fair amount of fishing pressure and recreational boat traffic, especially during the warmer months. Even so, with such a vast amount of shoreline, it’s seldom difficult for anglers to find a quiet stretch of water for themselves.
Getting to Norris Lake
Norris Lake is in the northeastern part of Tennessee, spanning portions of Anderson, Campbell, Claiborne, Grainger and Union counties. The Norris Dam and the lower end of the lake are roughly 30 minutes north of Knoxville via Interstate 75.
In addition to I-75, which runs roughly parallel to the Cove Creek arm on the west side of Norris Lake, you can access various parts of the reservoir via TN State Routes 61, 63 and 33, the latter of which crosses the Clinch River Arm.
Bank & Boat Access
Boat ramps and bank fishing access are abundant on Norris Lake, and some of the best access sites are listed below. For a comprehensive list, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s Interactive Map is a great tool for finding one’s way around the lake.
- Norris Dam State Park – Spanning 4,000 acres at the lower end of Norris Lake, Norris Dam State Park encompasses the dam and several miles of adjacent lakeshore. The park includes a full-service marina and boat launch, campgrounds, lakeside picnic areas, hiking trails, and bank fishing access.
- Cove Creek WMA – The wooded peninsula between the Big Creek and Cove Creek arms on the west side of Norris Lake comprises Cove Creek Wildlife Management Area. The WMA includes a public boat ramp in the Big Creek Arm. It’s also a short drive from the nearby Mattie Randolph and Ray Wilson launch sites.
- Lonas Young Memorial Park – Sometimes referred to as Campbell County Park, Lonas Young Memorial Park provides bank fishing and boat launch facilities at the back end of the Big Creek arm.
- Anderson County Park – One of the more centrally-located parks on Norris Lake, Anderson County Park occupies a peninsula at the convergence of the Powell River and Clinch River arms. The park has boat ramps, bank fishing access, and a campground.
- Chuck Swan WMA – Encompassing a huge tract of mostly undeveloped land between the Powell and Clinch River arms of Norris Lake, Chuck Swan Wildlife Management Area is primarily used for hunting. There are also several good bank fishing sites here, but no boat ramps or other developed facilities.
- Big Ridge State Park – Offering boat ramps, campgrounds and ample bank access, Big Ridge State Park overlooks the Clinch River Arm of Norris Lake. The park is near the Loyston Sea, the lake’s widest point, which gets its name from the town of Loyston, which flooded with the lake’s creation.