Steveo-1969

I have no idea where you can catch a smallmouth near Valparaiso, Indiana but a quick word of warning. Not only is catching smallmouth fun it's HIGHLY ADDICTIVE!! Fish at your own risk.

My Top 5 of all time: 1) The Doors (tattoo on my right forearm) 2) Billy Idol 3) Type O Negative 4) Blue October 5) The Pretty Reckless

A Strike King Bitsy Bug is my jig of choice for river smallmouth. I mainly fish the 3/16 ounce and bite off the first 2 segments of a Baby Rage Craw to shorten it for the trailer. I've also used the Baby Rage Menace Grub. This year I'm going to try the 2.8" Keitech Crazy Flapper as a trailer. I think the BPS Spring Classic sale will have the Bitsy Bug jigs on sale for $1.51 this year. That's a pretty good deal!

Karl Kalonka from Extreme Angler cracks me up. He'll talk about how important polarization is for your sunglasses to see into the water, and then he'll mention "polaroid" sunglasses.

Welcome to Bass Resource. BEAR DOWN!!!!!

Anything fished on the bottom (including tubes) will eventually get snagged no matter how it's rigged. If I can get to it I can get it out, but I'm usually bank fishing or wading and sometimes there's just no way to get it back. I'm allergic to treble hooks so that eliminates most topwater. I do fish small paddletail swimbaits a lot though.

It's true that they never give up.........

Is that a smallmouth? It's so muddy it's hard to tell....... ☹️

Yup. I've used the Sniper jig from @Siebert Outdoors and the smallies love them. Unfortunately my snaggy rocky river eats jigs for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I downgraded to the less expensive Strike King Bitsy Bug jig....

My favorite tactic for my river smallmouth fishing is a skirted finesse jig. TOTALLY addicted to the {THUNK} and the hook set!! I love fishing this jig so much I had @Delaware Valley Tackle build me a custom rod specifically for fishing this bait. WHOO!!!!!

I fish in a rocky snaggy river and would be lost without my diamond file hook sharpener. I guarantee I can sharpen a dull jig faster than I can cut off the dull one, pull a new jig out of my fishing bag, and tie it on. YMMV

You should also look at paddletail swimbaits that are marketed for saltwater or walleyes. Orange is a very popular color for both.

Unfortunately I live closer to Hagerstown and rarely get to Winchester, but I've heard great things about that store. I need to get my butt down there!!

I buy 90% of my fishing needs online. But within 20 minutes of me for "quick need-it-right-now" purchases I have 2 DSG stores and 2 Walmarts. The DSG stores are not great but are hands down better than the Walmarts. I will be a little sad if the DSG fishing departments start looking like my Walmarts.

If @dodgeguy meant Sufix Advance Monofilament then I agree. I've only used it in 10# on a baitcaster but I really liked how low-stretch it felt compared to Trilene XL.

I've used both and didn't see a difference either. I ran out of KVD L&L and was making an order online at BPS because I had a giftcard so I added a bottle of BPS brand line conditioner. I use it on a baitcasting reel spooled with 10# fluorocarbon or mono. Applied to the spool the night before I go fishing.

I fish in a very rocky snaggy river that loves bottom contact baits even more than I do! I lost about 20 skirted jigs in 2019 and countless small jig heads with plastic.

Unlike the Lower Potomac, the Upper Potomac that I fish is non-tidal. The SMB population is down in the UP because of high water the last 4 years during spawning. The MD DNR is well aware of this through seining, electrofishing and fisherman surveys. They now have a 5-year supplemental stocking program that started in 2019. They took 40 adult SMB out of the UP to a state hatchery, but were unsuccessful in getting them to spawn so they were returned to the river. Instead the state purchased 2000 juvenile SMB and stocked them in portions of the river that showed exceptionally poor survey results. They will continue trying to stock with state-run hatcheries for the next 4 years.

My smallmouth fishing was tough this year. I am wading/bank fishing the Upper Potomac River and the smallmouth population is way down right now. I spent hours and hours fishing normally very productive water getting skunked before making the decision to mainly wade in front of a dam where there was a small concentration of smallies. I still caught more catfish (while fishing for smallmouth) than I did actual brown bass. Small paddletails, finesse skirted jigs, Ned Rigs and Gulp minnows caught most of the fish.

Glad to see you put YOUR OWN name on that list @A-Jay!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmmmmm, from West Virginia? Well, I don't think he's a resident of WV but he's a student/athlete at WVU so how about: Nolan Minor @everythingthatswims

I enjoyed the North American Fisherman show with Steve and Hal Schramm and the Knot Wars segment. I think Lake Commandos is one of the most enjoyable to watch shows out today. Glad to hear he is not just pitching Berkley/Abu rods/reels/line/lures, etc... I watched your show last night on MOTV. I'm addicted to jig fishing and was glad to see you had the most productive pattern of the day! I'm adding Chris Fryer to my list of fishing celebrities that are members of Bass Resource!! ?

Did you catch a smallmouth at the boat landing before the boat was even launched? (Hmmmm, that might have been In-Fisherman or Linder's Angling Edge or Ultimate Fishing Experience or...). Anywho, I'm going to look for your episode on MOTV. I'm sure I watched it before but now I can say "Holy Crap, that's FryDog62!!!".

Agreed! Lake Commandos is in my Top 3 favorite fishing shows.

BTW if you order a custom rod from @Delaware Valley Tackle it will be shipped to you in a PVC tube...

My biggest river smallmouth is the one in my avatar. 19" length, the fish was not weighed. Caught out of the Susquehanna River in PA, the only time I have fished this river. 99% of my fishing is in the Upper Potomac and my biggest smallmouth there is 18.5" (4x).