So this is the first year I have a canoe to be able to fish out of and I’m lucky to be 5 minutes from one of the best small mouth areas good ole Lake Erie! So I went out todsy and omg it was s blast. Got tons of hawgs and even a surprised northern who almost took me in.  New PB smallmouth at 5.1 pounds and for sure my Pb northern, round two for tomorrow .. hoping I get some luck like @A-Jay with the 8 pounders ha. So excited for this pre spawn. Also should add any pointers would be great.  This is my first time ever fishing smallmouth like this. I been using lipless cranks and jerkbaits with luck so far. Around docks etc , 3-9 ft of water. It’s currently 55-57 degrees depending where I go. 

Quite a day! Congrats!

Congrats!!

 

Fantastic Day !

Nice Fatties.

Only pointer I have is that in the canoe - I'd recommend wearing your life jacket.

Congrats

A-Jay

Good stuff! My first year with a watercraft as well and it’s no coincidence I’m catching bigger fish than ever myself. Keep crushing it up there man! 

Congratulations on your new pb's.

4 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Fantastic Day !

Nice Fatties.

Only pointer I have is that in the canoe - I'd recommend wearing your life jacket.

Congrats

A-Jay

Thanks , I always have a life jacket with me it sits right behind my seat but I should probably wear it lol

Looks like you don’t need any pointers on catching smallmouth! Nice catches, A lot of the water I’m fishing in Tennessee is the same temperature as your part of lake erie

15 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Looks like you don’t need any pointers on catching smallmouth! Nice catches, A lot of the water I’m fishing in Tennessee is the same temperature as your part of lake erie

Yeah it’s perfect water temps for jerkbaits. I can’t wait for it to hit around 60 and they just get so aggressive and you can’t work the bait fast enough. I went out todsy and caught easily 40 fat mommas. They are all just so big

Thanks for sharing!

On 5/5/2018 at 9:25 PM, Ksam1234 said:

So this is the first year I have a canoe to be able to fish out of and I’m lucky to be 5 minutes from one of the best small mouth areas good ole Lake Erie! So I went out todsy and omg it was s blast. Got tons of hawgs and even a surprised northern who almost took me in.  New PB smallmouth at 5.1 pounds and for sure my Pb northern, round two for tomorrow .. hoping I get some luck like @A-Jay with the 8 pounders ha. So excited for this pre spawn. Also should add any pointers would be great.  This is my first time ever fishing smallmouth like this. I been using lipless cranks and jerkbaits with luck so far. Around docks etc , 3-9 ft of water. It’s currently 55-57 degrees depending where I go. 

Nice work Ksam, good work on your new PB.  I fish the lower Detroit River around Grosse Ile and we just started to regularly catch smallies 7 days ago.  Once water got above 52 degrees seemed to be the ticket.  Catching them on soft plastic swimbats and tubes.  After reading your post I will add topless crankbaits to my repertoire. 

Just now, MikeInWyandotte said:

Nice work Ksam, good work on your new PB.  I fish the lower Detroit River around Grosse Ile and we just started to regularly catch smallies 7 days ago.  Once water got above 52 degrees seemed to be the ticket.  Catching them on soft plastic swimbats and tubes.  After reading your post I will add topless crankbaits to my repertoire. 

d**n autocorrect... lipless,  not topless ?

Wow, great catches.

 

I too have limited experience fishing like that. The one thing I can suggest is try to have a couple of things rigged and ready to go. Your selection will improve as you learn the lake more. Jerkbaits and crankbaits are generally great this time of year. So are spinnerbaits. I caught a five pounder myself on a crank earlier today.

Sounds like a fantastic outing!  Might have to try the canoe thing for some pre-spawn smallies when they stack up at one of my Lake Huron fishing holes.  Nicely done

Yeah I was just burning the “lipless” above the weeeds and they loved it.  I went out yesterday and csught

sbout 50 smallies in 6 hours on spinnerbaits and jerkbaits. just so much fun. @MikeInWyandotte and I love fishing out of my canoe , a bass boat would be nice but this was only 600$ and I catch just as many @UPSmallie and @Boomstick I tried the spinnerbait and they loved it! Thanks