For smallmouth--try a SILVER BUDDY


"NH" wrote in message
...
...was exciting, but final results were not so hot. Had about 1 1/2 hours
to fish, and was tired of driving 20 minutes to a lake that hardly ever
gives up many nice largemouth, so decided to try SM fishing for the first
time ever. Went to the nearby Hocking River in SE Ohio, has reputation
for
good SM fishing.

Never had any luck with tubes on LM, but had heard that they are real good
on SM, so T-rigged a Big Zoom Tube, watermelon seed color, on a 4/0 EW
Renegade hook with a 1/4 oz bullet sinker. I put the hook all the way
through the tube and skin hooked it.

I started casting up and across the river, hopping the tube and letting it
drift downstream, paying close attention to rocks/boulders and
logs/stickups. The exciting part of the day was the three BIG hits I got
on
the tube. I swung hard with my 7 ft, medium heavy rod and 12-16 lb test
(can't remember what I've got strung on there, it was in that range
somewhere...), and all three times the fish was on the tube well enough
that
I pulled him out of the water.

The bad part of the day was the fact that none of the three got hooked
well
enough to stay on. It seemed to me that in spite of the extra wide gap
hook, the tube was too big for it and was preventing a solid hookset.
What
should I have done differently? Bigger hook? Smaller weight? Smaller
tube? I tried throwing a Stik-O, thinking perhaps I could get a better
hookup with the more slender bait, but got no takers.

SM fishing was fun, I could tell that all three fish were ready to rumble,
if you know what I mean. But it was a bummer to have all three of them
come
unbuttoned. Esp. when my visual of the three fish put each one of them
over
2 lbs, at the least. Nice Fish.

Advice?

Nate H.