Smallie advice

I’m looking to target small mouth on the river this weekend. Any advice on lures and presentations? I’ll probably launch on the top side of the dam and go north. Thanks for any input.

Or maybe from osceola south

I love Wacky and Coffee tubes. I have other tubes but the watermelon red Strike king tubes on the river has been the best for me. 3.5 inch tube.

Did try a few swim baits last season and did have some good luck.

Hoyt4 wrote:

I love Wacky and Coffee tubes. I have other tubes but the watermelon red Strike king tubes on the river has been the best for me. 3.5 inch tube.

Did try a few swim baits last season and did have some good luck.

When tube fishing are you casting and swimming them back or slow dragging?

Most times I’m casting and swimming them back with some pops with the rod. Hoping to look like a crayfish in my mind. Fishing heavy cover most time the Croix or the Miss.

On the lake I let hit the bottom most times and have good luck walking it off the bottom.

Sunday the bite was slow for the most part above the dam. We did catch them on almost every presentation we tried but we definitely had to work for them and cover water.

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Dbright,

That’s a BIG smallie!! TANKER.

Charlie “Turk” Gierke wrote:

Dbright,

That’s a BIG smallie!! TANKER.

Heck yeah that’s a really nice st croix fish

I am a big fan of swimbaits and buzzbaits when fishing with gear. Reaction innovations swimbaits are probably my favorite on a weighted wide gap hook. Flukes on a unweighted wide gap worm hook works awesome early in the year but the hookup ratio can be pretty poor. The past few years I spend most of my time chasing smallies with a fly rod.

How’d you do Bearcat? I went out twice last fall and did really well on lipless cranks and tubes. Dragging and hopping the tubes and slow rolling the cranks with some sharp rips here and there. I’m planning on getting out there soon as it’s a really fun bite when it’s on.

We put a few more nice smallies in the boat Saturday. If your bait was not landing within a foot or two of the bank you would not get hit. Sunday the smallies were tight lipped.

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Anybody been out lately? Planning on going out during the week next week.

Mahtofire14,

I had a catfish trip that turned slow as the day went on with repeat clients (bass and walleye trips). So I hoped to end the day catching fish so we switched to smallmouth bass at about 1 pm and did pretty good actually.

Most in the 14-17″ range )some bigger some smaller) but great fighting in 78 degree water on Limit Creek Smoothies (medium light rods). We started off catching fish on B Fish N Paddletails, and Mr. Twisters.

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mahtofire14 wrote:

Anybody been out lately? Planning on going out during the week next week.

It was slow Saturday and even worse Sunday. The stretch I fished Sunday had more people than I have saw all summer combined.

Charlie “Turk” Gierke wrote:

Mahtofire14,

I had a catfish trip that turned slow as the day went on with repeat clients (bass and walleye trips). So I hoped to end the day catching fish so we switched to smallmouth bass at about 1 pm and did pretty good actually.

Most in the 14-17″ range )some bigger some smaller) but great fighting in 78 degree water on Limit Creek Smoothies (medium light rods). We started off catching fish on B Fish N Paddletails, and Mr. Twisters.

Thanks Charlie, I appreciate it. Its not still no wake out there is it?

Nope open it up! No wake is off.