Fishing Forum

Haven't posted any reports from the river lately because smallmouth fishing, for us, has not been very good lately. Posting a report about getting your butt kicked is not fun nor very interesting. Don't know what's wrong with the smallmouth fishery:<br /><br />Too much fishing pressure?<br />Illegal commercial fishing?<br />Bad spawns due to too much current from lots of rain in recent years?<br />Drum crowding out the smallies and beating them to the food supply?<br />Live bait bank and boat fishermen keeping everything irregardless of size and numbers?<br />Smallies have seen every artificial bait and probably been hooked on them and wised up?<br />Our lures and patterns don't work any more? <br /><br />I am not making accusations! This is just some of the talk I have heard!<br /><br />Anyway, Pete Jr. and I went out of Riverpark Sat. and again experienced the difficulty trying to catch a smallie. It's gotten to the poit that when we catch one keeper smallie between us, we consider it a successful trip. We got one smallie between us on a jig/pig and it was just short of a keeper at 17.75 in. Pete got a largemouth just short ok keeper size on a jerk bait and hooked a monster fish that buried up and couldn't be puled out. He had a funny experience: 2 shellcrackers struck his 3 treble hook jerk bait at the same time, one of them came off, but he landed the other one, A TARP, 11.75 incher.<br /><br />The flow went from 27K to 14K cfs while we were there. The surface temp was 39-40. The parking lot at RP was almost full, very unusual for this time of year and such a low watr temp. Maybe they couldn't use the ramps in the Chick due to low water, so they came to RP.<br /><br />I am posting a a few smallie pics from the last few weeks as a sight for sore eyes. LOL