A friend of mine and I were talking recently and I was commenting on how I'd
like to find some new water to fish, especially for smallmouth. It's not
that I don't like Boom Lake and Lake Mohawksin, it's just that I fish them
so much that I'm kind of burned out on them. And the lakes that I've heard
good smallmouth fishing on are either heavy-use recreational lakes, so it's
early morning and late in the day, or else they're so far away that it
wouldn't be cost effective to guide on them.

Paul said he knew of a lake with good smallmouth in, not too far away, but I
had to promise I wouldn't tell any locals about the lake, and that we would
have to catch and release the smallies. I didn't have a problem with that,
and with those conditions, we headed off this morning.

It's a small, clearwater lake, only 126 acres. As we launched the boat, I
watched a nice smallie cruise by the dock! I had good feelings about this
lake, but was concerned about the weather. Recently we've had a series of
severe storms, cold fronts (even with some snow) and now today, it reached
into the 90's! Wanna talk about unsettled weather?

I started out throwing a pumpkinseed tube and Paul, not being much of a bass
angler, was using a hook and a live leech. Immediately we were into fish,
nice, chunky little buggers that pulled hard and jumped often. Probably the
average length was around 16 - 18 inches, but we saw cruisers that were far
bigger! After a lull in the action, I switched to a jig and a black bodied
grub and the action continued. Most of the hits came with the lure just
dragging it, but occasionally one would grab while the lure was being swum
back to the boat. It was non-stop action all day, one of those days that
dreams are made of. We'd fish points and some of the bites, especially from
the smaller fish would come on top of the point, but if we could drag the
lure into slightly deeper water, we'd pick up bigger fish.

Around noon, they stopped showing interest in the black grub, and I
convinced Paul that he really didn't need the live bait to catch them. I
talked him into using a dark pumpkinseed tube and I went with a lighter
colored one with bright orange tentacles. The action started up again and
we kept on bringing nice, quality smallies to the boat right up until we
decided to leave at about 2:00 p.m.! The waterskiers decided they wanted to
use the lake and I didn't have a problem with that, after all, we probably
boated in the neighborhood of 75 fish!

One thing I noticed, Paul was fishing with 6 pound clear mono and I was
using my standard 10 pound PowerPro and there wasn't any apparent difference
in our caught bass numbers. Water visibility was such that you could see
bottom with the locator reading 18 feet deep. Most of the fish came from
4 - 12 feet.

Wow! What a day!
--
Steve @ OutdoorFrontiers
http://www.outdoorfrontiers.com
G & S Guide Service and Custom Rods
http://www.herefishyfishy.com