07-24-2023, 12:14 PM
How do you know they haven't. It is likely that some have ventured upstream or downstream but did not find the habitat to their liking. As others have mentioned, smallies prefer water warmer than even the summer flows of most of our rivers fed from the bottoms of deep reservoirs. But that is not the only factor that will move them back to the lakes. They gotta have food too. In the cool water streams where smallies hang out in the higher altitude eastern states there is usually an abundant food supply...of crawdads and minnows of multiple species. Most of our streams have some bitty bite trout snacks but not much in the way of a well stocked bass kitchen.