Yes technically they are “native” as the lake is simply the dammed up creek. But they would never have gotten that large in the tiny creek. It takes abundant water and forage to create trophy smallmouth on that level.  
 

I have now floated 2 such creeks. Caesar’s Creek is pretty shallow and unless they are releasing water it is unfloatable most of the season.  Every so often they release enough to where you can paddle it and I caught a couple huge fish.  They were clearly from the lake.  It was still awesome but felt slightly less pure knowing they were not really from there, almost as if they were put there by man (they were.) 

 

Just some Monday shower thoughts lol, what do you think? 

I dont think too many will care.

That type of "purist" attitude is often found amongst the flyfishing crowd IMO

Get the same satisfaction I get from any legally caught fish. Big smallmouth is a big smallmouth, its not like these are hatchery fish the truck comes out and dumps in (dumb as a rock and used to being human fed with fishfood.) These are wild native fish that will always come over the dam at various times and take up residence in the river. No problems here.......

I’ve never seen such a dam. Ours are on huge rivers 

That looks like an ordinary decent small stream SMB. I have definitely never cared about this and never will.

The water below the dam is the upper portion of the next lake throughout the Tennessee

River system. Same on the White River in Missouri/Arkansas and the Grand River in Oklahoma.

Just go with it, doesn't matter if it grew up in the stream or 'escaped' the lake - it's a SMB of decent size.

 

I think the Minnehaha Creek gets some larger smallies occasionally when they release extra water from Minnetonka (source of the creek).

 

Right now, the Minnehaha is way down from the drought as they restrict the outflow from Minnetonka to try and keep it's level up.

 

When I was shore-fishing Friday, I noticed that at the spot I was, lake level was down about 2'.

I like the very hardy Smallies.  I do not care if they were stocked or swam up in high water conditions.  Love them all everywhere.   ?

4 hours ago, ironbjorn said:

That looks like an ordinary decent small stream SMB. I have definitely never cared about this and never will.

It’s hard to tell from the pic, it was easily 18” and definitely not the ordinary 12-14” stream smallmouth you find in the Midwest.

7 minutes ago, Ohioguy25 said:

It’s hard to tell from the pic, it was easily 18” and definitely not the ordinary 12-14” stream smallmouth you find in the Midwest.

I won't argue with you because pictures are deceiving and I wasn't there, but that's not the head or mouth of an 18" fish unless you have hands fit for an NFL QB. I catch a lot of stream SMB across Illinois and Indiana and that's a typical decent stream SMB. 

 

NDYakAnglr in YouTube fishes for stream SMB in Minnesota and North Dakota. His 18" SMB make yours look like a dwarf.

 

All our bay & river female bass are VERY DEEP bodied. They are almost a square in Length & depth.   I am guessing that skinny one is a male.

1 hour ago, ironbjorn said:

I won't argue with you because pictures are deceiving and I wasn't there, but that's not the head or mouth of an 18" fish unless you have hands fit for an NFL QB. I catch a lot of stream SMB across Illinois and Indiana and that's a typical decent stream SMB. 

 

NDYakAnglr in YouTube fishes for stream SMB in Minnesota and North Dakota. His 18" SMB make yours look like a dwarf.

 

 

It was about the same size as this one, my hands in the first pic are much closer to the lens than the fish.

A skinny 18” smallie is usually around 2.25-2.5 lbs in the Ohio/TN river drainage. Looks accurate to me. Those long lean ones will fight like the devil too 

The long skinny fish can be torpedo's.

 

Opening day of trout and  I am at the mouth of a creek on the Delaware River. First cast as a whistle blows.

Hooked up on a speedster in cloudy water. it races by me in seconds and continues up the creek & down a couple of times. Very fast trout. Actually a 18" male carp.

Those skinny males are way different. The girls are fast tugboats.

I enjoy all of them.  ?

On 8/9/2021 at 5:42 PM, Ohioguy25 said:

It’s hard to tell from the pic, it was easily 18” and definitely not the ordinary 12-14” stream smallmouth you find in the Midwest.

Not sure where you fish in the midwest for smallmouth bass.  There are lots of 18"+ smallies in the Ozark streams.  The 21.5" one in my avatar came from one.

On 8/9/2021 at 6:12 AM, BassNJake said:

I dont think too many will care.

That type of "purist" attitude is often found amongst the flyfishing crowd IMO

I'll second this, I enjoy fly fishing immensely, but I try to limit the time I spend with the hard-core purists in the sport, they can be ok in small doses and can be incredibly knowledgeable, but I think I'd be in jail or the looney bin after spending any significant amounts of time around them, because they can be some of the most judgemental, opinionated and snarky people you will ever meet too.

3 minutes ago, Sphynx said:

...they can be some of the most judgemental, opinionated and snarky people you will ever meet too.

 

?

 

Well, thank goodness you're not like that!

I've got some small streams around me that kick out 18-20" fish from time to time. My neighbor got a 19 incher he caught from a roadside ditch. The ditches drain the farm fields into a river. The fish swim up there in the spring, and get caught when the river levals drop. Several years ago, a local forest preserve district released several brood fish from the ponds they raised fish in for stocking. These were big fish that were past their prime and were no longer spawning, close to the end of their lives. They put them in a small, suburban river that gave a lot of people their personal best smallmouth.  Nobody who caught one was disappointed that the fish wasn't raised in that section of the river. 

You're making an assumption that's not necessarily true.  Conditions behind a dam are not really "clearly" better for producing big smallmouth than even a small creek below the dam.  This can be the case, but it's not the case everywhere.  One small river near me has two dams that I have fished above, below and floated between numerous times.  The lakes behind both dams are silted in and have a lot of dead water, and the smallmouth are definitely fewer and smaller compared to the free-running sections.  Abundant water does not always mean abundant forage. The shallow, rocky riffles you find in free-running sections are major food-producing areas, and smallies are well-adapted to exploiting these areas.

 

 

No weeds are a  very slim food chain. Silt does not grow very much nutrition for the very active bass. Also very low Oxygen levels. Rapids and bubbling water are a good substitute for the weeds production of Oxygen.

10 hours ago, desmobob said:

 

?

 

Well, thank goodness you're not like that!

Nobody is perfect, but I do put a lot of effort into avoiding those behaviors, I think the one that stands out most to me that I find irksome is the idea that there is a "wrong" way to fish, I can forgive the snooty comments about cheap waders, less expensive rods that cast like broom handles, the making fun of someone's ability (or lack thereof) to properly tie (insert pattern here) according to the current fashionable version, but if somebody is out catching fish and having the time of their life doing it, they might be a lot of things, but they certainly aren't wrong. 

Did you fool it into biting in a legal manner? Then it counts. I don't care where the fish came from, a legal catch is a legal catch. 

Obviously you know your creek and the fish that you catch better than I do. I'm several states away. First, beautiful smallie you got there, nice scenery too!

As a fellow creek/river smallie fan, that particular smallie doesn't look too big to me? Maybe it's the photo? Like other's have basically said, I'm not a purest and I just enjoy being out in creation, catching my favorite species of fish. Every day, every smallie is a blessing to me.

You have to remember the OP said Giant SM bass..........I would do anything legal to catch a true giant and probably would endure about anything as well............blood sucking insects - triple digit heat - and bear ? 

The only time I object to catching a fish (of any size) is if I have to stand elbow to elbow with other fishermen for that privilege.  THAT does not appeal to me.