I am going smallie fishing for the first time tomorrow on the Rappahannock river,  I bought some new tubes and inserts, mann's minus1's and some jigs.  I am pretty psyched to catch some of these fiesty guys.  I hope to put up some picture tomorrow night.

make sure to get a few soft jerkbaits like flukes and especially some shaky head worms (preferably brown). I cannot say how much those two baits have done for me this year for catching smallies...

Good luck, where are you fishing the Rapp?

We are fishing it in Federicksburg.

but where in Fredericksburg do you plan on fishing. I've fished the Rapp near Kelly's Ford and Motts Run and the Rapidan near Elys Ford.

We fished up at Mott's Run (across the street at the put in on the rap on river rd but there is slim pickings for water depth there and we had six people so we really didn't like that place (no one brought waders). We trecked through the woods way up the river but couldn't find many good places for us all to fish. So we fished a lot of Fall Hill Ave almost all the way up to the 17 bridge, then we back tracked and FINALLY found some fish on riverside dr. We fished down going torwards the route one bridge. We ended up catching three in about 30-45 minutes after being skunked all day.

I threw mostly pumpkin and watermelon tubes 4" and red/black tubes 5". But I also tossed a pumpkinseed jig x jig with vertical x matching trailer and an arkie orange and brown hair jig with the same trailer. Tried a white 4" senko for a bit and also toseed a mepp's inline spinner for a while. Only bite I got all day was the one fish I caught and the last we all caught all day. It was about 3/4 of a pound. Pretty fish though, and one's always better than the skunk. That was the toughest day on the Rapp I ever had. Normally I almost always come away with about a handful or so. Next year I guess.

Thanks to anglernfuego, rondef, ado124, and simonsays, we had a fun time and found some new spots to fish next time down. Hopefully we can do it again sometime. Oh yea, I forgot to mention my dad and Andrew both caught there first smallie ever today. Pretty cool to see two people get their first fish of that species in one day out on the water. Later guys.

Heres the one fish I caught today.  Decent sized guy, and as usual always a nice looking fish since it's a smallie!

Jason

Here is my first smallie.  I missed my first one which was bigger, this was the second one that hit my tube.

shoulda tried the jerkbait and if the bottom wasn't too leafy a shakey head

Congrats guys. I love the way they look, the eyes most of all.

shoulda tried the jerkbait and if the bottom wasn't too leafy a shakey head

I was conteplating the hard jerkbaits I had with me but stuck with my go to.  That's what I get I guess, I don't think it would have mattered today, the fish were f-in' hard to find, but who knows.  The ground was really leafy.  Everywhere I looked in the water was covered with em'.  Didn't bring my shakey heads this time out because they are all in my largemouth tackle bag.  Next time I'll remember to pack em'.

nice catch guys! sucks I had to leave early =/ but I'm glad that the entire trip wasn't a skunk!

Here's my guy. 12oz!! My first small mouth but hopefully not my last! YAY!

Caught him on a jig.