So I am new to the board and had a question for all of the Smallmouth addicts out there (like myself). Me and a group of friends have Oct. 12-16th off from college for Fall break and are staying at our cabin at Pickwick and fishing everyday. We do this trip every year and normally travel to Wilson to fish the Wheeler dam tailrace for Smallmouth most days. We have done decent with this in the past but are no experts for sure. I have just started questioning myself though in thinking why are we driving to Wheeler everyday when we are a 3 minute drive from Pickwick dam lol. Not fished below Pickwick much but I think I know enough to get me started at least. My question is is this weekend going to be too early for a good smallmouth bite below the dam?? I know there are many factors affecting this but was wondering what some of your guesses might be? Looking for that elusive 6 pounder!!

Might be a little early still. Water temp is not quite low enough, and we need the winter draw down to produce some current below the dam. Doesn't mean you can't do it, just not prime quite yet.

Jeff

BTW, I wish Cordova was a 3 min. drive to the dam. My wife would divorce me though.

Jeff

I dont know if I have enough self control if Cordova were 3 minutes from the dam LOL. Since we got that cabin in March I pretty much live up there any time I can anyways haha. We went below for 2 hours last weekend only caught 2 smallies so I have a feeling it will be similar results next weekend, still very fun to me though!

A buddy of mine fished below the dam 2 Saturdays ago and caught 20 smallies and spots. He fished all day and most were 10-14'' with this one

Jeff

Hey If i can do that I will be more than satisfied! haha. Is the best bait to use down there the big giant minnows bout at the gas station?? I know when we fished Wheeler last year we just bought minnows and seemed to work real well. Another thing that probably hurt me last weekend was the BP was out of jumbo minnows so i had to just get medium minnows.

Yes. Minnows. He caught all of his on minnows, and from BP. He also said the jumbo minnows were very small and thought that might have played some part in the smaller fish.

Jeff

Sounds good thanks for the info I will try to post some updates when we go down there

I'll be below the Pickwick on Saturday fishing from a center console BayRanger,

blue on white.

Come by and say hi!

Well I had planned on going this Saturday but I need to take this weekend and get ready for mid term exams....the following Friday through Tuesday though we will be there for sure so i will look for you if you are there....we will be in a yellow and white skeeter