Dave Hull

Big Un... Like Zona

I fish shiners at Rodman but like a giant TRD at Headwaters. It of course has gotten tougher over the several years it's been open. It's getting harder to fool them so feeding them is more appropriate now. Plan to use them shiners next year myself.

Wife and I have been going to DH or lake Erie every year since 2007, mostly DH. I like DH because we always get quality smallies. It's the one place other than Headwaters FL where I just know we're going to catch bass. This year Okeechobee, Rodman and Chickamauga let us down. Usually disappointed with lake Erie trips. We get bigger size there and our PB's but low numbers then there's the weather. At DH for 5 weeks from last of April to first week of June this year. Fishing got progressely better each week until we left. Water was mid 60's when we arrived and mid 70's at end of trip. The scum that accumulates on your line that must literally be plucked off became worse than ever! I've seen the water quality decline over the years. Have pictures from when we first went where the water is so clear the boat looks like it's floating in the air! Erie is probably clearer now. I don't keep count of fish but we probably averaged 5 fish per outing, once we caught ten. Just about every smallie was a slot fish and averaged 18.5". Some were larger and even fewer smaller. Wife caught 2 best ones at 22.5" and were just under 5lb. I never got one over 20" but man the aerial leaps from these skinny post spawn fish were incredible! One fish came straight up at the boat probably 5'. I had to step back as I thought I was going to get hit in the chin! Another went 3' in the air and 10' horizontally! "That's what is all about son." Caught more largemouth this year than any in the past. Also caught a few Rainbow trout, some large Channel cats and a big nasty Drum. I hate em. They are a scourge at Erie too. If there's one around I catch them. They love a hair jig. Morning bite is the best the earlier the better. Fished few evenings and no weekends! Fish were caught on main lake flats in 20 to 35 fow. Problem is there aren't that many of them and the obvious ones are heavily fished. It's a big lake mostly straight up and down. But I have the advantage of having a vintage map marked by the man himself Billy Westmoreland. It shows the spots he liked the best for a given time of year along with tips. He has alot of bluff areas marked but I don't like fishing them. Fish were mostly caught on spy baits. Blade baits, swim baits, swim jigs, hair jigs, live bait and Ned also worked. Last year Ned rigs ruled but caught few this year. Only use 6lb test line except on the blade baits. It's a must! My favorite times were throwing the spybait at schoolies busting shad at dawn. Incredible rate of hookup, probably 90%. Other lures I've tried are probably 10%! Amazing...

Do you have a backreel switch on your reel? Probably not as reel makers have dropped them. I'm always prepared to backreel at the boat since that's where he's most likely to get off when they surge boatside. Your drag should cover you otherwise. Make sure it's smooth, no Jerking when Paying out. Sometimes it's fate...

D

I'd move to eastern Tennessee from here in Central Ohio. Its being considered. I do like Florida in the winter too but wouldn't want to live there.

My professor once said that when dogwood leaves were the size of squirrels ears the suckers would be running. My first lesson in Phenology. Ohio state university uses for such things as timing pesticide applications for when the pest is most venerable or has the best effect.

Refreshing to hear that not everyone who catches a 4+ smallie calls it a fiver. Would you talk to my brother? We argue about once a year about all the fivers he's landed. Claims he's caught many, of course he's never actually weighed one. I tell him he's probably never got one over 5. He fishes on Ohio's inland waters. He gets quite mad! Like you I've caught countless 4+ myself but none over 5. When I boated my PB I'd swore it was a 6lb. Scales showed only 5 lbs even. Yea this lake Erie football is only a 5lber. Still looking...they ain't easy.

Came across this question after not being active on this site for over 5 years. Funny I remember an '09 post by posed by Dwight Hottle covering this same topic! Thread went off topic and did not go far so I wondered what he thought about chart below so I PM'ed him this list that I made when I caught his '09 post in '12 after wondering "10 lb Largemouth = ?? lb Smallmouth" 10-13 lb Largemouth = 7 lb Smallmouth 13-16 lb Largemouth = 8 lb Smallmouth 16-19 lb Largemouth = 9 lb Smallmouth 19-22 lb Largemouth = 10 lb Smallmouth 22+ lb Largemouth = 11+ lb Smallmouth He was catching plenty of 6+ pounders at the time so I didn't even start there! He replied "Very reasonable indeed." I then asked him "what fish & (its length or weight) do you consider the toughest "benchmark for a lifetime trophy" in North America to be?" He said a 50" or 30lb pike. At the time he equated that 50" pike to a 8lb smallie and a 35" walleye to give you some perspective on what such an accomplished Fisherman thinks constitutes a lifetime trophy when comparing those species like we do for SM vs LM. I see that Mr. Hottle is following this thread and another 9 years have passed so I was wondering if you ever got that 50" pike? Said he'd caught them up to 49" back then!

It is a direct correlation to the amount of sunlight that has been absorbed by light receptive cells in the fishes skin called... melanophores I think is the correct term.

Try a fat Gitzit (a tube bait) of the magic size & color needed on the original flat shaped jighead. Fish it like a jerkbait. I like the subwalk and the flukes as mentioned above too as topwater, although the preference for fun, isn't always as effective on schools herding fish to the surface.

Stayed on Kelley's during the first week of May. Fished smallmouths for 3 days and walleye for 3 days. Water was in lower 50's and clarity was good enough to see bottom down to about 10 feet. Caught about 15 smallies, all but one in the 4+ lb range including I suspect a new PB. I've caught many smallies of this length size over the years but this one takes the cake (or should I say Goby?) for plumpness/weight. About half were caught on LC Pointers In 10-15 fow on windy shores also tried hair jigs, jig & worm combo and various swimbaits with no success. Rest were caught employing the trolling techniques that Dwight Hottle has been kind enough to share with us on this forum. I used deep diving Live Target smelt jerks in 20-30 fow. At a 1 mph troll I found that these lures would work down to about 19' using 15 lb braid. This is my third year at attempting to get a monster spring smallie from Erie. This is my best year yet but I sure am anxious to get one of those 6+ lbers that swim there. My host at the cottage I stay at on Kelley's tells me to come backup in the fall as the fishing for smallies is better. Is he just trying to get another week outa me or what?

if topwater i would not use any floro since it sinks and will likely impair the action your trying to impart to your lure. I go with straight braid. Sometimes long casts are in order when I fish Heddon spooks so the hookups are more solid with the braid. No need for a leader as fast as I generally fish spooks. If your fishing something slower and you are worried about the fish seeing the braid then the 12lb mono leader is a good choice.

mister twister sandworms. have some of the berkley versions but did not seem to produce as well.

Yea for a general purpose line I've always said you can't go wrong with the XL. I did not like the Trilene 100% flourocarbon though. Too wirey to use on a spinning reel!

Good job! I was at Kelley's island yesterday and could not buy a smallie despite having decent luck 2 weeks prior while on vacation. Started by casting in 10-15 fow then switched to trolling in 15-25 fow. Buddy who is walleye fanatic caught an 8 and a 4 lb walleye once he gave up on smallies and swiched trolling baits to what they like. Glad to see that you had success. btw what is a ds?

Every body of water has a certain "carrying capacity". In the same manner that an acre of pasture can only support x number of cows an acre of water can only support x lbs of fish flesh.Obviously all bodies of water don't have the same "carrying capacity". To simplify let's say a body of water can support 500 lbs of fish per acre. That could be comprised of 500 1lb fish or 100 5lbers . So yea if there are an overabundance of small fish then there is no room for anything else so removing some smaller fish frees up resources to support larger ones too. So there is nothing wrong with eating bass and throwing them all back in certain waters can be a mistake that leads to stunted fish. Just keep the smaller ones because removing trophies removes the genetics that may have lead to it's size. BTW stunted fish can sometimes be identified by the fact that the seem to have larger eyes than normal for it's body size. A bass's eyes continue to grow larger throughout the life of a fish just like a humans nose does. Bass are tasty! They are of the sunfish family. Although I prefer members of the perch family for the table I eat bass on occasion. They are mush tastier (to me) than trout or catfish.

no flying lures or banjo minnows? Berkley Vanish was VERY disapointing! Go ahead and laugh but I've caught many a bass on the Banjo minnow!

If you buy the Gitzit "Pocket Pack Kit" (Cabela's currently has them in 2 1/2" & 3 1/2" sizes) they come with their own jig heads which are uniquely shaped to spiral downward on the fall which sets them apart from the standard tube jighead. In fact that is what really made them famous if you will. These are great for schoolers busting baitfish. I first used them at Dale Hollow back in the mid? 1980's.

I too used to fish Rodman in it's heyday back in the 80's. I hear it is back now. Didn't it get drained down at some point? Used to go with Dad and shiner fished looking for the elusive 10lber. Went with Dad countless times, I never got the one. Once I couldn't go so little brother who picks up a rod about once a year went. He caught a 12lber. Can you say lucky.... We used to run shiners. We'd hook them behind the vent then use a soft pitch up to the edge of the floating hyacinth and free spool the baitcaster after adjusting it tighter than you would for casting but loose enough so that the shiner could still pull line out. The shiner would instictively head for the safety and the shade up under the floating mass and the pull line out until it tired and came to rest in the hyacinth roots and kinda lay there a quivering/dying. A deadly technique that we learned from a local "Hog Valley" guide name Nelson Halsey aka CYHEB which he said meant "great white hunter". As I recall he was a big beer drinker and claimed to be Bud Dummer rather than Budweiser! Of course this only worked under the floating mats and as I recall it was drained in an attempt to get rid of the hyacinth which was an invasive plant. Are the hyacinths still present? Anybody else hip to this technique? Anybody ever heard of Nelson? He was a legend in those parts I'm told.

Kat man, please share with me where I can get a new stradic fj for $138 as I'm in the market. Thanks!

Not mine but the best one I've seen is when Bill Dance took Jerry Reed bass fishing on his "private" pond. Ol Jerry catches about a 10lber and claims that it is his PB and that he is going to keep it and have it mounted. Bill says not on this boat you aint! Jerry fires up the livewell and drops his prize in. Later when Jerry is preoccupied Bill slips the hog back into the drink. Jerry later asks Bill to run the aerator as he wants to make sure the bass has fresh water on him. Bill says "don't you worry the bass has PLENTY of water on him". At the end of the day when Jerry goes to get his bass and Bill says he put it back for him Jerry chases him plum out of the boat into the shallow water! I don't think it was staged for the show cause Jerry really seemed quite upset. Crap I have done... Had live crawdads hidden from my partner and was hooking them on my jig when he was not looking and he's wondering why I'm outfishing him 5 to 1. He eventually busted me and cursed my for not sharing! Smacked by buddy in the side of the head with a 5lber cause he sleeping when the bass are biting. He was so mad he immediately started the boat and went back to the dock! Crap done to me... When I was young & dumb buddy and I was fishing the spillway at a local lake after a big rain which spurred a feed. We could see big bass tailing feeding on crawdads. As we were tying up he wants to show me a new knot called the hangman's knot so I let him tie it up. I cast in and hook a big bass but promply loose it cause my knot pulls loose. He proceeds to catch the one I just lost which still had my hook in him! Nice knot. The old standby... Grab your buddies pole and peel out about 30 feet of line then cut it and wind it back onto the reel. When his lure goes sailing off into space and he's scratching his head try not to laugh!

AJ: I realize timing is paramount for the prespawn jerkbait bite. Weather wise last spring was a freak! I'm trying to hit the end of the prespawn period as the wife goes with me and I don't want to freeze her out. But I'm not buying that the jerkbait bite is over the first week of May on Erie. Normally the western basin would be between 50 and 60 degrees the first week of May and usually doesn't hit 70 until mid June. The protected water's temperature at Kelley's North bay rose nearly 10 degrees to 70 degrees during the week that we were there and although I think that did not help the cause I don't think it was the cause for my lack of success. How long of a leader do you use? Tytay: Lets rap. Sent you a PM several weeks ago...

In an effort to catch a PB smallie I made my first dedicated spring smallmouth trip to Erie last year. Usually go there for walleyes and usually go to Dale Hollow for the post spawn smallmouths. Results were disappointing to say the least. In five days I caught what I expected to catch in one day. Studied Dwight Hottle's Bass Resource write-up which he was kind enough to share on how he jerkbait fishes Erie. http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/100962-dwight-hottle/ There was also a timely article by Joe Balog detailing his Erie smallie techniques in an In-Fisherman article so I thought I had a good game plan! Fished the islands area mostly Kelley's the first week of May. Due to the early spring last year water there was already 70 degrees. That most likely was a factor so I'm going to go earlier this year. There were plenty of fish around as I spotted them under the boat whenever I got in less than 15' of water. Plenty of other bass fisherman trying as well but I never saw any of them land a single fish. Most others appeared to be drop shotting. I suspect the bass were more interested in spawning than anything else. But the ones I caught were still full of eggs and they don't all spawn at the same time anyway so I can't blame my lack of success on that. I tried a variety new jerkbaits both trolling and casting. I mainly used a spinning reel loaded with 10lb Fireline Crystal with a 8lb floro leader joined together by a mini swivel. To avoid problems with it going thru the guides I only used a 18"-20" leader. So I'm wondering if I chumped myself by not using a longer leader? What length leader do you recommend and how to you join the 2 lines? Thanks...

Largemouth are like carp, smallies like trout!