Here's a good one about smallmouth fishing, "Where do you suggest I go to catch trophy smallmouth bass? At what time of year should I go, and what type of lures would you suggest I use?" Well, these are really good questions, and there's a lot of arguments because people have their favorites. But what I would look for are areas that have really good, pristine quality water with a lot of forage available and cover. So what comes top of mind to me are, like, the Great Lakes areas, for example, Lake Erie. I'd also look at some of the areas in the Midwest, for example, say Tennessee has a lot of really good...you know, Dale Hollow and, you know, and the Tennessee River chain kind of come to mind that has some really good smallmouth.
Other areas I would look at are out west, say the Columbia River. And in Oregon, there's some great smaller rivers that have really good, clean water that produce big fish.
But the best time to fish for these big fish and you have your chances of catching the biggest one I believe is during the spring, early spring. When these fish are at their fattest, they're ready to spawn, they still have eggs in them, they're going to be at the biggest they are throughout the entire year. So early spring is a time I would target.
And I would focus on those areas that are in the pre-spawn areas, for example, drops points, and secondary points that are near the entrances to coves and bays, any type of creek channel that goes up into an inside of a bay that may have a rock pile on it or some kind of ledge, ditch. Those type of things, you know, leading into spawning bays and spawning areas, that's the areas I would target.
And I would fish probably like a jig or jig and pig, maybe a finesse jig. I'd also use tubes. Tubes baits to me are some of the most productive baits for big smallmouth. Just day in and day out, year in, year out they produce quality smallmouth bass. So that's what I would do if I were to look for trophy smallmouth bass.
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