Some Smallie Action!

[pooch]

Some Smallie Action!

 

Every year at the beginning of the season, I vow to try new techniques to improve my fishing skills. It is pretty easy to fall into a comfort zone and forget to push the learning curve. This year one of my fishing goals was to pursue smallmouth bass enough that come tournament time, I have the confidence to target them if the largemouth bass are not cooperating.

 

I got out this morning with just my smallmouth gear on the deck of my boat. The lures for the day were jerkbaits, top-water poppers, tubes, and senkos. The idea was to use fast moving jerkbaits and top water baits to locate the smallies, and tubes and senkos to catch them if they are reluctant to hit the reaction baits. Off I set out running and gunning, planning to hit a dozen smallie spots over the next couple hours.

 

Stop number one, I land a couple smallies and lost one about two pounds. A good start, but not the big bite I was looking for. Stop number two and three produced another couple small fish. It was stop number four that impressed me, and got me into a good smallie. After losing a couple on the top-water popper, I decided to slow down and throw the Senko around. Not more than a dozen casts and I felt the weight of a good fish. Looking down to check out how big this fish is, and I notice two more giants cruising along side during the fight to the boat.

 

Hmmm, come tournament time, at least one of those fish would look nice in the bottom of my live well. Hopefully a five fish limit of them!

 

 

What worked?

Lure – 4” Yamamoto Senko pink and watermelon

Depths – two to four feet of rock/weed

Rods – 6’ 10” Shimano Cumulus rod medium-light power, extra fast action

Reels – Shimano Stradic CI4 2500 6.0:1 gear ratio

Line – 20 lb Phantom Red Power Pro braided fishing line

 

Weather Conditions:

Mostly sunny

Winds – north 10-15 km/h

Surface water temperatures 75-78 Fahrenheit

Air temperatures reached a high of 26 Celsius

 

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Edited July 11, 2010 by redsfishin

[lunkerbasshunter]

nice smallie you got there!

 

Cheers!

[Leecher]

Beauty Congrats

[fish-miester]

great stuff! I wish i had 2 power poles! :|

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Nice smallie. Informative post. Good luck on your tournament.

[LucG]

Nice fish and great report! I love how you break down the details. Keep it up!