justinrose40

"If You Ain't Hangin', You Ain't Fishin'." - My Dad (He says this every single time I get hung up, he never misses a one, and it does usually lighten the mood.) "Never Give Up!" - M.I. (I know a lot of you are probably tired of hearing this one, but it can sure change your mind set on a tough day)

I had never heard of anyone spraying anything on the pollen to clear it up. Pretty good idea for anyone who fishes for bed fish, if it's legal on your lake. My home lake is a zero discharge lake, and enforces a 25,000 dollar fine if your caught putting any form of foreign substance into the lake.

Thanks Road Warrior. People were starting to panic that something had happened to the smallmouth. Because no one was catching the size or numbers they were used to. Some thought that live bait fishermen had packed them out over the Winter, but I work at a dock on the lake and I knew that no one had hardly fished all Winter (too cold) this year. I thought that there had to be a natural reason for the lack of fish being caught just didn't know which one of the two scenerios was most likely the problem.

My home lake in South-Eastern Kentucky usually turns out some really good bags of early spring smallmouth. Usually takes low 20lbs to money in early spring tournaments. This year the water went from 40 deg. to 65 deg. in roughly 4-5 weeks. I fish a lot of tournaments and the biggest weight I heard of this spring was 17lbs, but mostly 11-14 lbs or less. It seems like there was no pre-spawn bite, smallmouth seemed to move straight up and start to bed. This past weekend it took 20lbs to money for first time all spring, but these were all bed fish (mixed bag largies and smallies). I was just wondering if anyone has experienced similar conditions on lakes they fish in the past, and if I could expect the post-spawn bite to be a little better this year as it seems fish didn't spend as much time feeding up before going on the bed this year? Another factor that may figure in but I'm not sure, is the fact that we had a pretty sizable shad die off this year just before it began to warm up. I understand that this happens every year on certain lakes, but there was a noticebly larger amount of dead shad floating this spring. Could this abundance of easy targets as the fish moved up, account for the very poor pre-spawn bite?

Congrats. Nice Fish

I have never thrown a buzzbait much at all, just haven't got the confidence in it due to not throwing it, but I have a friend who writes articles for some state and regional magazines and he has done a few on buzzbaits. He catches a lot of fish in the summer, all night long on a buzzbait. Personally, I've never did more than give it a very short try, but I do know several people that say they work great in certain water temperatures in the middle of the night.

I use a net on anything that I don't want to lose the chance to take a picture of. I respect the fact that some guys are anti-net, but whether a fish was lipped or dipped really don't do anything for me personally. Just seems silly to me to take a chance on losing a good fish, for the sake of not using a dip-net. But, to each his own.

Ever cut the main line instead of the tag and toss a sinking bait over the edge of the boat, just to watch it slowly disapear? Good for a laugh when it happens to your buddy, not so much when it happens to you.

3" smoke grub on 1/4 ounce led head around bolders or on bluff walls.

Joining Bass Fishing Resource of Course. A more specific ocasion, I was fishing a night tournament on my home lake and was catching fish good on a brown jig with a brown trailor up until about midnight. Then took a 4 hour dry spell, finally around 4 am I took the time to think about what had changed. Then it hit me, duh, the moon had sat around midnight, and the bass must not be able to see my brown/brown jig good enough. I took the brown trailer off and replaced it with a charlie one and caught a throwback on the first cast, 5 cast later caught a 5lber and was able to finish up our limit before daylight and ended up finishing 4th in a tournament that it looked like we had no chance of finishing in the money in. This was probably an easy decision to have made, but for some reason it took me 4 hours to think of it, but when I did it payed off big time.

If your'e going to make a trip North for Smallies, I would look into traveling to Dale Hollow in TN. I've caught Smallmouth in middle TN out of Douglas, Norris, and Cherokee, but if you're going to have to travel anyway, why not go to the lake that holds the current World Record Smallmouth. I live about 2 hours from Dale Hollow and about 15 min. from Laurel Lake which is another great Smallmouth fishery in SouthEastern Kentucky. I have seen a lot of 5-6 lbrs caught out of both lakes in the last few years. My dad caught a 6.2 last week out of Laurel and a friend of mine caugtht a 7.3 2 weeks ago out of the same lake. Smallmouth fishing is very good right now but with water temps getting close to 60 I'd say they'll be nesting anytime and you can expext to see those weights start to fall quickly. I'm sure that you can find some smallmouth fishing closer to home, but these two lakes are the best I know of in the TN-Ky area. Good luck in wherever you decide to go and when you hook one hold on tight.

I have never fished that far north, but when the water temperature is 42-45 on my home lake in Kentucky I catch a lot of pre-spawn Smallies by swimming a 3 or 4" grub on a 1/4 ounce led head. I target rocky points or bluff walls that are close to deep water. I throw the grub up on the point and let it hit the bottom and then slow roll it back letting it bounce off of the bottom on the way back when I can. On the bluffs I reel it very slow letting it fall from one ledge to the next. I don't know if this technique will work on your Northern lake but it's very productive for me down here. May be worth a shot, Good Luck.

Fish something you are confident in, and fish hard til the very end. It took me awhile to be able to do this. I used to panic in the last 2-3 hours of a tournament if I didn't have the fish I wanted, in turn I was waisting these hours by fishing to fast. I took just one tournament with no fish for the first 6 hours and then 15lbs the last 2 hours for a 4th place finish to get me on the right track. It's not easy, but make yourself fish hard and slow until the very end.

Thanks for the information, just something I've always been curious about, but was actually getting worried about this year. By the way, saw my first two pairs of nesting largemouth today. Giving sunshine for the next few days so things are looking up.

I have fished Cedar Creek, but only once. At first I thought "wow this bank looks great", then I thought "wow this whole lake looks great". I was a little overwhelmed. I have heard stories of some good fish coming out of there but I didn't have any luck at all, the time I went. I want to fish Cedar Creek some more, but I've got to get some more info before I go back. My dad caught a 6.22 Smallmouth last Saturday in this same tournament at Laurel and I weighed a 6.3 largemouth for a guy at the dock on Wed. They are really on right now at Laurel.