I was coming home from a ball game when I saw Steelfisher and his son Scott getting ready for a fishing trip, so I made myself available.
I am glad that I decided to go along. The fishing was incredible. I don't know precisely how many we caught but I know it was in the 100 fish range. Out of that 100 smallmouth I would say that 10 of them were on the "big" side for Ririe. That being over the magic 12" mark. The rest were dinks but still entertaining.
We caught them on various colors of wackey rigged Senko type baits as well as tubejigs in crawfish color.
Thanks Steelfisher for another great afternoon on the water.
Windriver
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Thanks! I've been up kokanee fishing and doing well all spring but I'm ready to give the bass a try-thx again!
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I've always wondered why the smallmouth are so small in Ririe? The reservoir is huge and deep and there is a lot of water there. So why aren't they getting bigger??
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I believe there are two reasons why the bass are so small in Ririe.
#1 Short growing season. The water is very cold for most of the year there. Smallmouth require a little bit warmer water for longer periods of time in order to get their metabolisms up to eating speed. If you think about it they just started feeding heavily and they will slow down in late Sep. early Oct. When the water temp goes down again.
#2. Shortage of food at times. The last couple of years have been pretty good, but some years we do not have good water. When the water is lower the reservoir does not fill and flood the brush. When the brush does not get flooded then there is not place for the baby perch, bass, suckers etc... to hide. When the bass don't have sources of food other than crawfish they quickly can lower the crawfish population. You get the idea.
Without a steady food supply the bass go on a feast or famine diet at times. You have to remember they are competing with the cutts for food at times as well.
I personally think it is the cold water plus low food availabily that leads to small bass.
Windriver
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That sounds about right to me. Global warming needs to start heating southeast Idahoans up!!!
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I think it just matters on when you fish durring the spawn. Three years ago I caught one that weighed just over 4 pounds and several others that weren't far from it. The last few years I haven't done so good there but I attribute part of that to the weather during that part of the year. When I tried there the other day all of the bass I saw were pretty small and I only ended up catching three because the others couldn't fit the plastic worm I was throwing in their mouth but they sure were trying.[
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I know there are some big ones in there, but I believe they are the extreme exception. My personal best is 16." I have a friend who has two 18"ers on the wall from there. Last year my biggest was 14" and I fished it a lot. You make a good point. It probably is smart to fish with bigger baits if you want to keep the little ones off.
Some of those small guys were slurping up 5" senkos. I like fishing big crawfish baits on 3/8 oz jigs for the bigger ones, but I don't like donating them to the rock gods every few minutes.
Windriver
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