Fishing Forum

I've been reading various posts on various forums that seem to indicate that fishing, especially for smallies, has been bad this year.
Since a lot of my favorite spots are going bad I was thinking of expending the very hard work, for me, (I'm older than Lava Rock now) and packing my tube on my back and hiking in from the N. end like I used to do years ago.
Man, many years ago I've had some of my best memories of smallie fishing ever. Caught the close to the record catch and release smallie but never reported it since I didn't have witnesses, etc but I have epic.s for my memories That's more then enough for me. He measured 21 3/4 in.!!!! But, -----------, that was many, many years ago!!!! Forgive me, -------, just old man memories.[laugh]
Would really appreciate some feed back as to whether I should expend the limited energy I now have to try. [:/]
If I could fish with some sinkos, reapers, or curly tails and catch 1/2 dozen 12-14 in guys, it would be worth it. []
What do you all think??
P.S.Had a great time at sand Hollow just along the dike for 2hrs ea. for 2 days recently but I'm not about to travel over 300 mi on my limited fixed income. Was down there as a one time meet up with friends. Sill miss my smallie fishun since in my opinion, they fight twice as much as LM.
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I honestly wouldn't waste any time or energy there. I kept going up there in hopes that I would get into some sorta decent fish, nothing but dinks. I'm sure there's some decent fish in there but nowhere near the numbers to justify trying to fish it when there are a lot better fisheries with a better class of fish.
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What do you think happened to this fishery? [frown]
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Guess that perch disease crashed the whole system. We ran in to some spearfisherman that hadn't seen much down there, they did spear a 17 incher but that was the biggest they saw. I don't think spearfishing has had a huge impact, if its a healthy fishery than it can withstand a decent amount of catch and take, especially as deep and as decent of size as the nelle. Hopefully when the perch rebound, so will the smallies. I'm sure there's still a few pigs swimmin around but not nearly enough worth trying for.
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There are still nice ones, but you will weed through 50 or so 8-12 inch fish it seems in my experience. I am sure the guys that really know it still catch a few decent ones, but for weekend warrior's that don't know as much about the lake or fish it's going to be tough to get the size.
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Jordanelle is that bad if you want to catch nice sm bass..

You can have 20 fish days but only two or three may be 12" or more..
Out of 6 tournaments this year big fish was 19" at best for sm bass and you had to go through 30 or more bass to count 5 over 12" with luck, out of the 6 tournaments fished I got 1st place in all, but two I was only the boat caption and guide but we took first...

The numbers are down and the size is not there..
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Sounds like heading north might be a better option. The average size is really improving every year up there.
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Maybe give pinewview another shot, it may be worth just paying and going into cemetery point so you don't have to walk so far. Every time I have gone in the last couple months I've caught plenty of smallmouth and some nice sized ones too.
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ya the last times when i went in the past 2 years ago i would catch only dinks and those suckers in the lake at night XD
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