Fun day catching smallies

[bluebasser86]

A friend and I went to one of the best local smallie lakes to try to get a feel for what they're doing because we have a get together/fun tournament the 20th of this month and all I can say is I hope we have fishing the 20th like Drew and I had Wednesday. Started with one of the best topwater bites I've had on that lake. We probably would have had 30 fish in the boat just on topwater if we didn't miss so many of them. We were almost within casting distance of the ramp when this 16.5" fish slammed my Xcaliber Jimmy.

Before we even left the ramp cove we had caught smallmouth, largemouth, spots, whites, and a walleye. I had a fish come unglued on my Jimmy but it didn't get the hooks, like to have that one back. Ran across to one of my favorite flat points and caught some little ones on topwater before I tossed my Ned rig and hooked a heavy fish that threw a sub wake when it came off the bank. Pretty good fight before I got ahold of a 17 1/4 incher.

Caught a bunch of dinks on the rig before Drew put a Torpedo on and caught a 16 1/2 incher of his own.

We could pretty much catch them at will on the ned rig and they were hitting topwater nonstop but we weren't hooking up with them. Fished the marina, it sucked, 2 dinks, 1 green 1 brown. Hopped to the point between the dam and marina, not a bite. Ran to the dam, caught them at will on the rig, lots of dinks but several 12-14 inchers plus this 17" fish.

Ran to one of my furthest spots towards the other end because boats were sitting on top of boats on each point by the dam. We smacked several white bass before I hooked a little smallie on a squarebill. When it got close to the boat I saw 4 or 5 other fish chasing including one really nice one. I tried to get my ned rig in the water and right when I did the big fish grabbed at the front of the bait and got itself hooked too. I had a double for just a second before the big fish stole the bait from the little one! I traded a 10 incher for this 17 1/4 inch tank.

Drew got big fish of the day with a KVD 1.0 shortly after I got that one. I was about to leave the spot when he cast way behind the boat and got slammed. It was a long fight and you couldn't even see the crankbait when it got to the boat and I got the net under it. 17.5 inches and 3.16 pounds.

I ended with 43 bass, Drew had 23. Plus we caught a bunch of whites, a few drum, 3 walleye, and a few sunfish. We were never really catching them fast but we caught them steady all day. Squarebills, ned rig, topwater, and spinnerbaits accounted for a majority of our fish. Didn't even get to fish most of my spots I normally fish.