Smallmouth Bass- I'd enjoy seeing some pictures!

beagleye

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In my humble opinion, smallies are the most exciting freshwater fish to catch. Frankly they just seem like the angriest fish. Sometimes they strike with vengeance, then take off! And when a 19" fish takes off it's like hanging onto a motorized brick! Especially in the current. Just make sure your drag is set right. Anyway, I am high on smallies this spring. If you all have any cool pictures, I'd love to see them. Here's a couple of mine from this spring. Thanks, Pete











 
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My Dad won a fishing contest at a large Northern Iowa lake. One prize was a Henry Ibbotson split bamboo fly rod with a Shakespeare auto take up reel. He did lots of opening mornings on trout in some MO spring fed streams.

I learned how to fly fish with that setup and it is in my gun safe.

When young our farm was almost at the juncture of where a large spring fed river met a larger river that had lots of spring input.

I would go across the highway and trout fish to where they both met, I then fished for a few miles down stream and below the shoals it was smallmouth heaven. I loved to catch them, fighters they are. I then could walk home by cutting a few farms between us and the river.

Be there at daylight or feed the mosquitos at dusk, this was prime small mouth time.

I too wondered where you were at. The frist few pictures look like southern MO or Northern AR where there are many rivers that are spring fed. The trees and ridges look right.

The beards also match local boys.

Then you threw in the Muskie, HMM, there are some connifers in the back ground.

So are these in 2 different locations, or one.

Not to fish your favorite hole but what are the GPS coordinates. :)
 
Those are some nice smallmouth you caught there.
Pound for pound i'll take a smallmouth over anything
that swims.
Nice Muskie as well.
I got no pictures but have caught some nice ones up
in Canada on a fishing trip back in 1976.
You hook a 4-5 pound smallmouth and get ready for
for the fireworks. They are a blast to catch.


Chuck
 
I admire the fight that even a white/sand bass can put up on light tackle.

I wish that I'd been able to fish for Tiger Fish in southern Africa or Pavon (Peacock "bass") or Dorado in Brazil and Argentina.

Walleyes have their place, although one bit me pretty effectively on my thumb. Thank God, it wasn't a barracuda!

But I don't doubt that a smallmouth bass can put up a fight.

I've caught largemouths and felt they were somewhat overrated and I don't like the taste of them.

I haven't caught hybrid or pure striped bass. But based on what their smaller cousin, the white bass, does, I'd think they'd fight quite hard. And probably taste better than the sunfish "bass", like largemouths and smallmouths and Kentucky bass.

Does anyone here know if striped bass taste the same when caught in fresh and in salt water?

And does the tiger fish remind you of a striped bass a lot, save for the grim arsenal in the mouth of the tiger fish?
 
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Smallmouth are great but quite common. Tell us more about that musky. Assuming it was caught on the fly rod, it must have been a blast.
 
Smallmouth are great but quite common. Tell us more about that musky. Assuming it was caught on the fly rod, it must have been a blast.

Did you see the skull of that HUGE musky that was featured recently on, "River Monsters"? !! Jeremy didn't catch that one, but it came out of the same Canadian lake where he was for the show. He did get a pretty good one, but not that big.

Being bitten by one that size would be like having nails driven into your hand. Not small nails...
 
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That's my fishing buddy Matt. Yep, he catches muskie on a fly rod. It still seems a little crazy, but it's sound like a ball so hopefully I'll get a chance to try it soon. db- you catch any muskie?
 
I just caught a smallmouth on Friday night during our walleye opener.
It was roughly 15-16", give or take. I didn't measure it or take pictures.

Like I said, I was fishing for walleye. That stupid bass was interfering. :D

Hillbilly or ole 77 if I may. Ya gotsta work on your technique.

Walleye feed deeper, you need a full 1.5" fuse on the dynamite.

Forever your friend, Game warden # 12.

Link one shows the proper size fuze.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j5RXX_Tg-c[/ame]

Link 2 shows an incorrect amount of HE. This looks like a quarter of a box my bro and I used in one of our shallow ponds when we tried to clean out the mud.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHADyL_bdvM[/ame]
 
db- you catch any muskie?

No, never have, not yet. I'm recently getting back into fishing after a 20-odd year break (I literally grew up on the water as my father used to operate a walleye charter on Lake Erie and I got burned out on fishing after doing it every day for the first third of my life). I've caught, at one time or another, pretty much every fish in Michigan except musky but I do plan to go after them in the future. :)
 
Thank you all for the nice comments, stories and pictures. More pictures would be great. The location is the French Broad River in western NC.

I well know the French Broad River. Bogey said it best in Casablanca, "Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine." I walked into the French Broads wild side.

I guess I now know why it looked so familiar. Shortly after breaking my ankle there our company merged with another. The new corporate office was on the east coast. 4 times a year I drove the interstate that parallels the French Broad River. Every time I could look way up the mountain and remember this.

For those that don't know it you can sit on the NC side on top of the mountain in a white water raft you head down the mountain towards Pigeon Forge, TN at breakneck speed when they open the power generator from the mountain top lake?

I wanted to go fishing, Mrs M-70 and her whole family at the reunion wanted to go white water rafting.

Fishing would have been the smart move. The guide lost control and over a bus size rock we went, dropped the better part of 20' upside down with my leg trapped in the raft. Broke my ankle and a nephew hurt his bad enough to limp all summer.

So I spent the weekend using Makers Mark as a pain killer and back where my ankle was bent past the 90 degree mark was all those small mouth? Geez. I'm gonna chew some thrill seeking relatives out.

And small mouth are very nice eating too sir.
 
I love smallmouth. They fight much harder than the largemouth bass. And in flowing water, they are small depth charges on a lure.

White bass on light tackle are huge fun, but the smallmouth beats them.

Since I am a twisted, depraved old man, I've always been amused by the name of the French Broad River. :D
 
I think a small mouth makes a trout look like a carp. Nothing more relaxing than wading local streams plugging for Smallies.
I my neck of the woods we are on the eve of 17yr, Cicada hatch.
Fishing will be hot, until the fish get gorged on them. In the R&D
stage of making Cicada plug, Deer hair bugs are killer, but need
something to throw on splnning outfits.
 

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