Jeff's smallmouth bass fishing blog

Jan 2012 smallie on the board

2012-01-06T12:15:00.004-06:00

Phil and I got out Jan 5. He had the smallies chasing his Silver Buddy blade bait pretty hard, and we both caught some on tubes in the deepest pools. The air temp was about 50, really an amazing day for January. I was able to extend my streak to 35 straight months with at least 1 smallie.

One goal I have this year is to catch over 20 species, one more than in 2011 which was probably my lifetime best. My friend Ben Cantrell from Madison WI has gotten me interested in that pursuit. I think he had something like 25 or so species in 2011.
I use live bait so rarely that it's kind of a challenge. Maybe I'll do a couple of live bait river trips in 2012 and pick up some catfish, carp, suckers, and such. On the other hand, it's sort of interesting to shoot for a species list restricted entirely to lures.

So far in 2012 I just have a smallmouth bass on my list. Phil is too psychologically well adjusted to keep a list, but he's already off to a good start with smallmouth, spot, carp, rock bass, shiner. His big Jan 5 carp is pictured.

Dec 31 Open Water Fishing

2012-01-03T15:35:00.005-06:00

Phil and I took his boat out on his pond Dec 31 for some cold water bassin'. He had been to the Kankakee River the day before and caught a couple of 16" smallies on tubejigs, and I was itching to get some sort of fish, but had little time for a river.

We anchored the boat in the deepest basin of the lake, where some Christmas trees have been submerged, and where we ice fish in colder times. It didn't take long for Phil to get his Silver Buddy blade bait working, and he caught maybe 4 largemouths on it, and then another on a small tubejig under a float.

I persisted with a 1/4 oz Cotton Cordell Super Spot fished much like his Silver Buddy, with a lift and drop technique. Finally, at another spot that is traditionally productive, I hooked up with a very nice crappie that just engulfed this thing. This fish appeared to be on the weedline, the only one we found in close that day. It's amazing to see how the fish can attack a hard bait even with the water temp so cold.

The crappie began to bleed from the gill, so we decided to keep it. This was a delight for my fish loving wife who is puzzled all year at how I can report catching all of these fish but never provide one for the family.

The forecast for Jan 4-12 is looking nice, so hopefully there will be some days to get out on the river, and extend my smallie streak to 35 months.

My December Bass

2011-12-15T10:00:00.002-06:00

I don't ask for much in the winter, just a smallmouth a month to keep my streak alive. Phil and I went out yesterday and caught a few bass. All of mine came on a small marabou jig a couple of feet below a weighted 1-inch float. I believe the count was 1 smallie, 1 spotted bass, and 2 rock bass. Phil caught some on a crappie tube under a float as well as on a larger tube jig fished on the bottom.

That keeps my streak going, a smallmouth in 34 consecutive months.

2011 Highlights

2011-11-27T12:02:00.003-06:00

There is a month to go in 2011, so hopefully there will be some editing to do. Nevertheless, I'm submitting the first draft of my 2011 highlights this fourth week of November. Last year I wrote a full month-by-month summary of the year. Maybe I've been busier or am just getting older, but I can't seem to reconstruct what took place at that level of detail this year. So, I'll switch to more of an ESPN format, and just give the highlights.

Diverse Destinations: Caught smallies in 4 states, 3 lakes, 2 ponds, 10 streams.

Biggest Brutes: I caught several fish over 18", but just 1 twenty-incher, it's the pig pictured above. That fattie slammed a spinnerbait in mid-October.

Piscatory Partners Phil Fiscella and Chet Fall are my dedicated partners for 12 months of IL and IN river fishing. I had another amazing South Dakota trip with my father Ken and son Austin. Ben Cantrell and I were able to fish several times, twice when he passed through Illinois, and twice when I went to Wisconsin. I also had 1 trip with lifelong friend Peter Miller.

Best Baits
1. White 3/8 oz Strike King Red-Eye spinnerbait was unbelievable in October, and I even caught one on it yesterday, Nov 26. The big girl in the picture fell to this lure.

2. A 7" green pumpkin Berkely power worm on Luck "E" Strike Perfect Worm Rig is by far my most productive bait in summer and early fall, 3 years running.

3. A black 3.5" Chomper tube on Owner Ultra-Finesse jighead has been a great bait later this fall. I fish with the greatest of tube jiggers, Phil Fiscella, so I'm always learning something about fishing a tube.

4. 100 and 200 Series Bandit crankbaits were our staple in South Dakota, but also accounted for many spring and early summer river bass. These baits always run perfectly, but I need to start sharpening or replacing the hooks.

5. Cotton Cordell Super Spots are cheaper than Rattle Traps and appear to work just as well. These came in handy a couple of murky days when some rattle was needed, and are always good to throw over boulder fields.

Topwater Troubles There were a couple of days when Zara Spooks or buzzbaits drove the fish wild, but they were few and far between. My primary river tends to only become clear late in the fall, after the leaves have fallen, so it kind of takes topwater out of play for many of my trips.

Favorite Fish
1. Austin's northern, the first fish of our SD trip.

2. Ben's spotted bass, another species for his lifetime list, and a guiding success.

3. My pig in the picture. Thanks to Chet for the photo and for fishing with me that day.

4. Phil's catfish, a Kankakee River monster that I was hoping was a state record walleye.

5. My mother-in-law's bass, the first fish she'd caught in her life, came out of Phil's pond.

6. Jackie's big bass day on worm and bobber in Phil's pond. This led the six-year old to confidently say, "I don't even like fishing, I'm just good at it."

7. Andy Stepanov's 15" sucker that came late and saved the day and the mood of a camping trip.

Lessons Learned After consistently river fishing for several years, improvements come incrementally through gathering a larger and larger database in one's head, and sorting through patterns that seem to persist year after year, and during the corresponding season. Improvements come through being more and more efficient at several aspects of fishing. These can be broken down to the individual elements of locating fish, coaxing them to bite, and bringing them to hand.

1. Locating Fish

a. Read water by eye and by feel. This was a fun challenge in 2011 on some larger flows than I typically fish, the Wisconsin River and the Kankakee River.

b. Recognize seasonal differences in location. This concerns how fish react to clarity and water temperature, and their movements for spawning and wintering.

c. Explore and generalize knowledge to new locations. If you fish the same mile trip after trip, you may know it so well that patterns are useless, because an entire library of knowledge is saved to cover any particular situation. However, what happens when you go to a new location. Then it is a matter of recognizing patterns that hold over time and location, and may boil down to a handful of critical facts. Fishing is sort of like math in that way, and can be learned similarly.

2. Making Them Bite

a. Don't sppok them. Even if you found fish, they won't bite if you spook them. This may seem like a simple idea, but isn't always easy. It concerns whether you walk upstream or downstream, the length of casts, and playing shade to your advantage.

b. Make appropriate bait selections for conditions. I tend to keep things simple, but benefit from reading what others have experienced, or by watching Phil and Chet.

b. Present bait effectively. This isn't as simple as it seems. Two people can work the same tubejig in the same water, but one will get 75% of the bites. For example, two such people might be Phil and me, and he's the one with 75%. I know this from experience.

3. Bringing Fish to Hand

a. Select proper equipment to ensure high chance of hookup. Is the rod weight and action correct? What sort of line is being used? Does it stretch much?

b. Execute proper hookset for selected bait and bite characteristics. Going from a 70% hookset success rate to a 90% would mean a bunch more fish.

c. Skillfully play fish to hand, recognizing potential hazards. How many big fish flopped off this year? Could that be cut in half? What changes should be made?

These are a few key elements to improve on each year. Hopefully I'll be editing this post with some big December bass stories to tell, or highlight.

2011 species list so far

2011-11-15T20:33:00.003-06:00

1. smallmouth bass (IL, IN, WI, SD)
2. spotted bass (IL)
3. largemouth bass (IL,WI)
4. rock bass (IL)
5. green sunfish (IL)
6. bluegill (IL)
7. longear sunfish (IL)
8. walleye (SD)
9. sauger (IL)
10. northern pike (SD)
11. brown trout (WI)
12. drum (IL)
13. white crappie (IL)
14. white bass (SD)
15. common carp (IL)
16. golden shiner (IL)
17. gar of some sort (IN)
18. creek chub (IL)
19. redhorse sucker (SD)

2012 Fishing Destinations

2011-11-15T13:12:00.002-06:00

I plan to start using Google Maps to approximate the number of miles of river I fish.
My goal for 2012 is about 80 distinct miles of paddling and wading (some wades will be repeated) broken down something like the following:

Illinois:

Salt Fork 22 miles
North Fork 3 miles
Middle Fork 4 miles
Vermilion (near Danville) 5 miles
North Vermilion (near Pontiac) 4 miles
Saline Branch 6 miles
Sugar Creek (near Lincoln) 4 miles
Prairie Creek (near New Holland) 2 miles
Salt Creek (above Clinton Lake) 2 miles
Salt Creek (below Clinton Lake near Lincoln) 2 miles
Stony Creek 1 mile
Jordan Creek 1 mile
Kankakee River 5 miles

Indiana

Wabash 3 miles
Big Pine 3 miles
Coal Creek 3 miles
Sugar Creek 5 miles

Wisconsin

Wisconsin River (below Prairie du Sac dam) 5 miles

That's 80 miles of streams spread across 18 streams and 3 states. I'll be charting the progress.

Some 2011 facts and figures

2011-10-13T23:36:00.004-05:00

The interesting thing about 2011, is that I've purchased fishing licenses in 4 states and have caught smallies in each of those.

Illinois: Salt Fork river, North Fork river, Vermilion river, North Vermilion river, Sugar Creek, Prairie Creek, Saline Branch, pond #1, pond #2.

Indiana: Coal Creek, Sugar River

Wisconsin: Wisconsin River (near Lone Rock and Spring Green)

South Dakota: Roy Lake, Red Iron Lake, Clear Lake

I have no idea how many miles I've waded. I try to cover new water as much as possible, but tend to visit several spots many times.

It's currently the middle of October, and I'm doing well with spinnerbaits and Zara spooks. Soon it will be time to restrict to tubejigs and float and fly.

South Dakota: By the Numbers

2011-06-06T09:59:00.010-05:00

Here's a summary of our South Dakota trip 05/28/11-06/03/11

White Bass

total 85
largest several just under 18"
lures 100 series Bandit, jointed Shad Rap
lakes Waubay

Northern Pike

total 68
largest 33", 28", 28"
lures spinnerbaits, 100 series Bandit
lakes Buffalo, Bullhead, Red Iron, Waubay, Roy

Smallmouths
total 31
largest 19", 19", 18.5", 18.5", 18"
lures Strike King Zerio with 1/16th oz weight, weightless Yum Dinger, 100 series Bandit
lakes Roy, Clear, Red Iron, Waubay

Largemouths
total 1
largest 19"
lures spinnerbait
lakes Bullhead

Walleye
total 1
largest 24"
lure 100 series Bandit
lakes Waubay

Dad with a 28" pike

Austin fighting a Waubay "silver"

A typical Waubay silver bass

Dad with a Bullhead Lake Largemouth

Dad with a fat Roy Lake Smallmouth on his Strike King Zero

Another fat Roy Lake Smallie, this one on a weightless Yum Dinger

Silver Lining in the Clouds

2011-04-26T10:59:00.002-05:00

Storms in mid to late April have all the streams completely blown out, and smallmouth fishing isn't much of an option right now. However, pond fishing has been incredible, and the wind and storms can be enormously beneficial. The trick to pond fishing in stormy times is to have an inventory of about 40 ponds stored in the brain. Then think through which ones will likely have drains pouring much water into them. If the wind is strong, consider ponds that are oriented in a way the will funnel the wind into narrow necks. Sling a rattle trap up near the bank of a windblown shore, and feeding bass will race for it as you do a yo-yo retrieve. Throw a senko up into a drain, and watch your line run off to the side as bass are waiting for food to be washed their way.

In the photo, my father is holding a nice bass caught in a Normal, IL pond April 23, that was just below the current where run off water was flowing into a large pond. Note the baitcaster at his feet. Dad doesn't go for any silliness, no spinning gear for him, and better not mention a fly rod. I believe his baitcaster was Texas rigged with a 12 inch worm on a 5/0 hook with a 1/4 ounce bullet weight.

Transplant Surgery

2011-04-10T10:14:00.003-05:00

I was goofing around at a few ponds yesterday, catching some largemouths on a fluke, when I decided to go bother Phil a little bit. He's always up to something unusual, and this time it was transplanting some smallmouths from one pond to another. He has several top secret smallmouth ponds in Champaign County started, and the idea was to find some breeders for another. It sounded fun, so we loaded a couple of five-gallon buckets and a tub that must have been about 25 gallons in my truck and set out for a smallmouth pond.

The first pond we visited is being overtaken with largemouths. Fishing was slow, but we found some largemouths on the windblown side. Phil was especially hot on his rattle trap, and his new KVD inspired retrieve. However, we couldn't find any smallies and took off for a second pond.

I walked directly up to a traditionally hot corner, and on the second cast my tube was sharply bitten. After a crazy fight I landed a smallie that Phil taped at 19 inches with a pinched tail. In the next hour, I picked up a second around 16 inches, and Phil got a nice 18 incher. It looked like it was time to go, and it might be one of those extremely rare times when I catch more smallies than Phil. However, he had very generously given me the windlown side, critical on such a sunny day, while he fished in the calm. Phil then took his rattle trap down the windblown side and rapidly picked up 3 more smallies, including another 19 incher, to give us a total of 6 smallmouths, all at least 16 inches.

We had them swimming in about 25 gallons of cool water while we drove them to their new home. En route we decided it would be fun to have a picture with them. As we were passing an Asian grocery store that is owned by some friends, I decided to pull over and have someone take a photo. Vivia, the very friendly high schooler who seems like she has worked there since she was 5 years old, came out to take the picture shown above of 5 of the 6 fish. Then we quickly dunked the fish in the tub and made for their new home. All 6 swam off in good health.

A Mercy Fish Saves the Month

2011-03-06T07:53:00.004-06:00

February was tough. I was very busy with work, and I believe I only managed one river trip, though we did have a couple of fun Saturdays catching largemouths through the ice in Phil's pond. My streak of catching at least one smallmouth for 23 consecutive months was in jeopardy as I went out to make my desperate attempt Sunday, Feb 27.

I fished a stretch along the upper part of my primary stream, and couldn't get anything on float and fly or a crankbait. However, the air temp was about 55 and the water was up but very clear. Finally I put on a Strike King Coffee Tube, and thinking I had about 10 more minutes to fish for the month, I worked some slack water along a steep bank. While nearly completing my retrieve with the tibe on the rise, I saw a smallmouth dart up with surprising energy in the cold water and snatch my tube. With very little line out, I swiftly lowered my rod to give the fish some line, and then as it swam away from the bank I popped it good once my line straightened. This tiny fish showed mercy on me, and saved my record, so I felt it was worthy of a photograph. Now I'm up to 24 consecutive months, coming into the best 9 moths of smallmouth fishing. The winter was tough, 2 smallies in December, 1 in January and 1 in February.

The Lost Writings of Phil Fiscella

2011-02-01T11:10:00.005-06:00

With some careful internet archeology, I was able to uncover some excellent articles by Phil Fiscella. These are very insightful articles that are specific to fishing for smallmouths in small and medium-sized Midwestern streams.

Drainage Ditches:
Dredged and Straightened and Loaded with fish

Woodworking 101

Slow Water Hot Spots

The End of the Season

Rapids

Fishing Lifts

A Tale of Two Climates

2011-01-30T10:57:00.004-06:00

Below we see the difference between South Padre Island and East Central Illinois in January. My father is pictured in a light jacket with a rabbitfish that he caught, and I'm proud of my tiny little smallie after battling through the cold for many trips without a single bite. He has been primarily surf fishing, and catches as many as 30 pompano and whiting in just a couple of hours. On the occasional charter boat trip he has been limiting on red snapper, and apparently catches a few unusual fish as well. Here in Illinois we either ice fish or break through ice in the rivers, hoping for a creek chub and dreaming of a smallmouth. It's good that at least one of the Douglas boys has some hot action going. Things should pick up here in the Midwest as we get closer to March.

2011 plans

2010-12-21T20:36:00.003-06:00

Let me just scribble a few thoughts. For one, I hope to gain confidence I can catch fish in the coldest conditions. One problem now is that all the slow water has ice over it. If we can get a warm day or some winter rain to melt this snow on the ground, maybe the river will rise and break away all the ice and form some tight and open eddies near the bank. I have tubes and float&fly all ready. I'm also playing around with some 3" fluke-like baits and gulp minnows this winter. Winter is a tough time for the mind. You struggle through several weeks, and then March marks the beginning of hope and confidence. It's tough trying to be a confident 12-month river bass fisherman. Ice fishing can be fun, but after a few trips you just have to get refocused on Mr. Bronzeback.

I can't wait until my June South Dakota trip. Maybe that's a trip we can take for a decade. The landscape up there is amazing, cattle pastured on rolling hills surrounding pothole after pothole, and lake after lake. It must be an amazing life for the locals, tending to the cattle, and fishing largely untouched water for bass, pike, and walleyes. There are so few people and so much land and water. It's paradise. The paradise coefficient is directly proportional to the smallmouth bass divided by people ratio. Call me social phobic or smallmouth fanatic, it's one and the same.

This year I hope to add a few more tactics to my arsenal. For one, I plan to work flukes pretty hard, as a jerkbait and as a topwater lure. They seem quite versatile. Also, I'd like to work more on a Carolina rig to cover more midstream water. The main goal for 2011 will be to explore more miles of river. I estimate that I waded about 150 miles in 2010 that included about 40 distinct miles of river. I'll likely cover many of those same 40 miles again, but will try to add 20 or 30 miles to it, many of them in Indiana.

2010 Year in Review

2010-12-10T12:02:00.033-06:00

In this post I review my 2010 smallmouth fishing month-by-month. There are no notes, so I'm working off of memory. That means 18" fish will be remembered as 20" fish, and I might get the month wrong on a few events. In the future I'll try to keep more regular notes on this blog, with the main aim being to document things that I've learned or observed.

Because I'll be dropping many names throughout the post, let me start with the cast of characters, the people I fish with.

Ben Cantrell is an engineering doctoral student in Madison WI. We fish when he is around Champaign, and in the photo below he's holding a catfish he caught at a pond in the Cherry Hills neighborhood of Champaign where his uncle used to live. It turns out that is the same pond by which Phil Fiscella lives. Ben is a smart guy who is interested in fish and tries to keep a lifetime list. We only made it out once this year, and in some drainage ditch fishing we caught several smallies, and he added a longear sunfish to his lifetime list. The next time he is down I hope to take him to a good spotted bass hole, so he can add that to his list.

Scott Ahlgren is a math professor with a background in fly fishing. We made it out once in 2010. It began as a very slow day, until right near the end when we found a school of fat smallies. In the blurry picture below you can see an extremely fat 15" or 16" smallie that he caught. Hopefully we can fish more next year.

Chet Fall is an excellent fisherman who can go all day. He'll do a 15 mile run before a 2 mile wade. The most remarkable thing is that he can fish in 90 degree weather in his neoprene waders without breaking a sweat or taking a drink. Meanwhile, I'm in breathable waders fighting off dehydration and heat stroke. Chet is very patient and will thoroughly work a hole with a jig, and pull out a nice smallie 15 minutes after I've decided it contained no more fish. Chet and I fish regularly, and in the picture below he has a big smallie he caught near the mouth of a feeder creek, a key staging area for fish traveling upstream to spawn.

Hua-Hua Chang is a longtime friend and collaborator/ business partner of mine. We co-own 9 acres of ground along a river. Because Hua is such a famous scholar, he's usually busy working and traveling the world, so we don't get out to fish much. Usually when we meet at the river it is to cut some wood, mow, or do some small construction project. I need to get Hua out more in 2011.

Tim Smith is largely responsible for getting me started river fishing again, which happened in the fall of 2007. Tim brings a vast knowledge of biology to his fishing, so it is always interesting to get his views on things. We try to fish whenever he is around, but much of his work is in Belize, so he blends a little snook fishing with his smallmouth fishing. Usually he is planting mangroves, doing some environmental field work, or inspecting shrimp farms. Here he is with a great looking spotted bass that he dabbled out of the wood in front of him.

Phil Fiscella is a very regular fishing partner. He might be the most creative river bass fisherman in Illinois. If you take 20 of the top river bass fishermen in Illinois and send them out to the river for a tournament, my money would be on Phil, even if he only has a bag of tubejigs and some jigheads. Well, let me say especially if he only has a bag of tubejigs and some jigheads. We try to fish 12 months a year, and he is always full of ideas concerning fishing or just about anything else. He is pictured below with a 19" smallie that he caught on a crankbait in about a foot of water.

Ken Douglas is my father and a very accomplished fisherman. At one point about 20 years ago he came within a couple of ounces of the state smallmouth record, with a big pig he caught in Powerton Lake. We fish an excellent strip mine pond in Fulton County, where he has caught a half-dozen bass over 9 pounds, a couple times a year. In June we had an amazing fishing trip in the northeast corner of South Dakota. In this picture he is holding a monster bronzeback from Roy Lake, SD.

Austin Douglas is my son, and had a breakthrough year with fishing. Austin got a lifetime of experience landing big smallies on the South Dakota trip, because we would hook fish and let him land them. However, he decided he wants to be 100% responsible for his catches, so we worked hard in ponds last summer to teach him how to use a plastic worm. It was a big success. Here we are with one of the big smallies that Austin landed.

Now let's do a month-by month review of things, and see if I can remember things.

January: The year began with a few ice fishing trips, and most stream smallmouth trips were in a small stream within a couple miles of a warm water discharge. This meant fishing in 40 degree water rather than 35 degree water. Action was steady, but not fast, aside from one day when Phil and I got into a pool full of fat smallmouths and landed 13, with several around 18". The best winter technique was to fish a slender thin-walled tube, with an exposed hook protected by a light wire weedguard. We would cast upstream and try to fish as slowly as possible, letting the tube sit on the bottom for several seconds, or maybe slowly sift along in the slow current. Bites were light and required a great deal of patience before a hookset. Another technique that worked was float and fly. However, this appeared to be more productive for small bass, and it is killer for rock bass.

February was more of the same, but I had some modest success in the bigger and colder river, miles down from where our warm stream enters. Float and fly had some success, primarily with spotted bass. The key is to find eddies and fish them thoroughly, in the front and back, and along the seam. I cheated a little and tipped my hair jigs with wax worms. I figured if I was using a bobber, I had already lost my pride, so why not catch a few more fish.

March is a tough month to remember, and I think I didn't get out much. I recall catching a few smallies and spots on crankbaits, and also some on #4 Mepps spinners. The water tends to be high in March, and much of my fishing is on the bank. My experience in these March conditions is that it can be highly productive to target where ditches enter the river, and I have at least three such spots that are always productive in the early spring. Just past where the ditch enters, there tends to be a mudline, and if you can rip a crankbait along the seam in the clearer water, quite often a big smallie or spot will be there to slam it.

April marks the beginning of a fun time, which is tracking the smallies' migrations to spawning locations. It can be productive to start searching in small feeder creeks. I think the best day I had in April was a trip with Chet in our primary river that ended just below the mouth of a feeder creek. There is a nice deep stretch with some riprap that can be loaded with fish gathering and preparing to move up in the creek. We got into a bunch of fat smallies in this spot, maybe a dozen or so. We were pitching tubejigs upstream and letting them tumble on down through some rocks and into the mouths of bronzebacks. Chet is pictured above with one of them. By April, I like to replace the slender tubes with somewhat meatier Strike King Coffee Tubes. Also, I replace the wire weedguard hooks with Owner finesse hooks, rigged texposed. This month, fish were also chasing my #4 Mepps spinners and I even moved to a #5. Many river fishing articles advocate #2 and #3 spinners, but I see no reason to go so light. I think a heavier spinner vibrating through the water draws more attention, especially if the water is somewhat murky. Also, I'm bothered by how many fish I've possibly killed when they have completely engulfed the trebles on the smaller spinner. In the future, when I want to go light, I'll use a beetle spin instead of #2 or #3 spinners.

May saw some high water on the streams I fished, and I fished the little warm water stream I mentioned from January quite a bit, though I was usually many miles downstream from where the winter fishing took place. I fished pools and holes of all sorts rather than spawn beds, but clearly fish were populating this stream more and more, with spawning on their minds. In one case I used a tubejig to pull 4 nice smallies out of a hole that couldn't have been more than 30 square feet. A few fish were also becoming aggressive on a buzzbait, though it was generally a poor year for topwater.

In a non-smallmouth related story, I have to mention a trip to a Fulton County strip mine pond with Dad. He introduced me to a Spro plastic frog. I tossed it into some sparse but spreading lily pads, and saw a monster bass come up and engulf it. An initial tug got it moving away from the pads. For some ridiculous reason, I was experimenting with some weak and cheap 8-lb Eagle Claw monofilament line. Mercifully, this bass cooperated and swam away from the pads into open water towards the boat. Eventually, I landed an 8 lb largemouth, by far my largest ever, but not even close to the largest in this 40 acre pond.

June was quite a month. I was pretty much washed out from stream fishing, as this was a wet month just prior to a prolonged dry period. However, we had an amazing trip to Roy Lake, South Dakota. On June 1 Dad and I began our search for Roy Lake smallies. We fished along rocky shorelines and along wood where these rising lakes are claiming timber and pasture land. It was tough to start with and we ended up in a weedy bay that was stuffed with nice northerns. We caught several on spinnerbaits and Dad had one that must have been 8-10 pounds. The next day we continued our search for bronzebacks. As we held the boat in about 9 feet of water and casted towards shore, we finally met with success as a huge smallmouth clobbered my Bagley buzzbait.
I caught 3 other smallmouths on a buzzbait that day, and after losing the magic Bagley, that was the end of the buzzbait bite for the trip. It was crazy, they were killing this particular buzzbat, but wouldn't touch another, not even my usual 1$ Wal-Mart specials. Those Costa Rican buzzbaits suck, but seem ok for river smallies.

By then, we were learning secrets far better than buzzbaits.. Dad was having breakfast with an area guide, Gary Gangle, each day. Gary, a remarkably friendly and generous guy, said fish were spawning in about 7 or 8 feet of water. Throughout the next few days we began fishing some rocky points and sandy shorelines, keeping the boat over 10 feet of water, and casting towards shore, slowly dragging Strike King Zeroes (a Senko like bait that Phil likes to throw and stick on the ceiling of his garage) with a very light jighead. This resulted in several huge smallies, as well as one exciting double as Dad and I both fought nice smallies, unable to net for one another. A picture of the double can be seen below. Both fish were returned safely. We also found a bay that had a mix of sand and weeds with some wood along one end. This produced a nice mixture of smallmouths, and a couple huge largemouth bass. I should mention that the northern bite continued throughout the trip. My one regret about Roy Lake is that we never explored the mid-lake humps and rock bars where some other campers were having success. Maybe next time.

After starting to learn our way around Roy, we decided to hook up with Dad's breakfast friend Gary. He took us to Clear Lake, and Austin had the smallmouth experience of a lifetime. Gary positioned the boat just outside of fast current where a stream flowed into Clear Lake. Gary explained that we were near a classic spawning location, and bass would leave this in big waves to get up in the current near the mouth of the creek, where they would feed aggressively on yellow perch, which we then saw regurgitated many times. This was old-school stuff. We would pitch out a half of a nightcrawler, and set up a nice drift watching our bobbers make there way down with the current. We had dunk after dunk after dunk, and maybe caught 50 smallmouths within a few hours. It seemed like the median was 16" or 17", and some were over 19". Austin was reeling in so many that his arms were hurting. These fish would fight hard and dive under the boat on this light tackle again and again. It was a pretty amazing experience, and probably spoiled Austin for life.

July was an interesting month. Among other things, I made my first smallmouth fishing trip to Indiana. The drought was just starting and river levels were dropping. This is about the time in the year I switch from tubejigs to 7" plastic worms, as my plastic of choice. Also, topwater should start to heat up, though the upper part of the primary river I fish stayed kind of murky until fall, and topwater wasn't as good as it has been. Chet and I caught a bunch of bass in the lower and clearer part of the river one day, and about half were on buzzbaits. Another day I fished along an upper stretch with Chet, and used a Zara Spook in the river the first time. He kept getting bites but couldn't hook up with a bass along some narrow slot. I said I'd tie on that spook and see if it would react. On the first cast a big fat spotted bass blasted the spook, then shortly after I picked up a midstream smallmouth on it. At this point I was high on the spook, and then joined Phil the next week, along the river many miles downstream and in clearer water. This day I probably had 15-20 bumps on the spook, but fish didn't really want it, and I just caught 1 fish on it. Phil was getting more aggressive bites on a weightless fluke, a technique I need to utilize next year. We were picking up smallies on tubes in pools, in shady shallow spots with the fluke, and I had a good run throwing a rattle trap and working it back against the current in a deep bottleneck. That day we caught 41 bass. Another fun day in July (at least I believe it was July) was when Ben visited. He is really into fish, so I took him to a clear drainage ditch with a great variety of fish. It was kind of neat, we were basically sight fishing. He was trying to add to his species list and was more pleased with the little longear sunfish he caught than with his smallies. Ben there, done that, I guess.

August was another very dry month. It opened up the river to wading wherever we pleased. Mostly I threw a 7" worm and a Bandit 200 series crankbait in August, and of course tried hard to make something happen on a buzzbait. I need to learn not to fixate on forcing the topwater bite. Often it just isn't there. The go to bait was the Berkley green pumpkin 7" power worm, Texas rigged. In this hot and dry month, the fish became easy to find wherever there was deep and moving water. This combination was key to finding fish, and I would try to walk upstream and throw a long cast, and just let the worm wash along the bottom and wait for a fish to start running off to the side. I think I went through about 50 plastic worms in August and September. The river was low and we could access just about any part of it. Wood seemed to be less of a feature in this low water, and fish were in the middle of the stream, wherever there was depth and flow.

September was very similar to August and remained hot and dry. The fishing pattern with worms remained the same. One notable trip was with Chet to Indiana. We fished a spot on Sugar Creek that Phil had marked for us. The water was remarkably clear. We might have been able to see down 5 or 6 feet. I have the feeling we were spooking fish and chasing them in front of us, but we did manage to catch about a dozen nice bass. There were two situations in which there was a riffle and a pool at the bottom of islands, with side channels joined the flow to create even more turbulence. Tossing on the lift above the riffle, or even in the most turbulent spot resulted in some crashing violent hits on buzzbaits, and some of the biggest bass of the day. I somehow managed to hook a big sucker on a plastic worm, and Chet accidentally snagged and landed a monster channel catfish.

October saw the fish moving towards winter locations. Because the river was so low and growing colder, you could eliminate about 95 percent of the water from consideration. The most fascinating observation of the month was how the smallies and spotted bass both started going nutty for big spinnerbaits, both willow blades and Colorado blades, in mid-October. I'm not sure if this relates to their forage at the time, but I've never had so much success with spinnerbaits. I was catching them along deep bends, in pools, and next to wood. The hits were ferocious for about 3 or 4 trips, then by November they completely shut down on spinnerbaits.

November was a tough month with water low and cold, and not many chances to fish. Phil and I had an interesting canoe trip. We paddled downstream and anchored along several spots. Fishing tubejigs very slowly we picked up a nice mix of smallmouths and spotted bass. The fish were in the deepest holes, foreshadowing the winter season. You can see Phil pictured below with some of the fish. Along one bend, true to form, we caught spotted bass on the upper part that was deep with a soft bottom, and smallmouth bass at the lower end where the bottom transitions to gravel. Phil seems a little embarrassed about his spotted bass, not sure why. By this time, it all came down to fishing slowly with tubejigs, which replaced my plastic worms of summer and early fall. Many of the fish appeared to be in winter mode and just wanted a tube sitting on the bottom in a deep hole. I had a couple of fun drainage ditch trips in November, but these were in warm water with fish behaving like it was early October.

December was atough fishing month. I've just managed a few rock bass and a couple of tiny smallmouths, and you can see the cold and icy streams I've fished. Those tiny smallmouths continued my streak of at least one smallie a month, dating back to March 2009.