Smallmouth thief…

I didn’t know smallmouth could be such thieves. Everyone knows how Smallmouth like to follow another fish while is it being fought and brought towards the boat. Today I actually had one grab my Yum dinger right from the fish I was fighting. As I was fighting a SMB near the boat, another “buddy” fish came right beind him and grabbed the entire senko from from a hooked fishes mouth and I even saw it in his mouth while he swam away.

It must excite them when they see another fish being hooked and instinctively they try and grab what the other fish just ate; almost like a feeding frenzy.

Has anybody else witnessed this??

Its not super common by any means, so dont get me wrong, but I have seen quite a few guys catch 2 fish on one crankbait. Ive seen a bass following a bass I caught before, doing the same you mentioned, or appeared as if it was trying to steal the bait.

I’d say in a couple weeks when the water temps drop a bit this will be a daily occurrence. When the bite is really on… I’d say this will happen almost all day long.

I was as surprised as you were the first time I saw it Now it’s something I’ve just grown to expect as part of an exciting day fishing Smallmouth.

Doesn’t get much better does it. If you get some good ones post a couple pics

Yeah it happens quite a bit, dont usually steal it though but if the lure falls off they snatch it right up.

Ive seen this on pool 2. The smallie comes to the surface and regurgitates some food and the other smallies are right there to snatch it up.

Early this year I had a sumo smallie in a small creek slurping up 6 inch shiners I was releasing off the fly rod. Got him a couple weeks ago on black muddler at least 5lbs and quickly released no pics no fuss…..

I have also caught a couple deformed injured smallies that were hanging around turtles or eddies in spillways. One had no lower jaw but seemed really healthy.

We used to fish Rainy – before the heavy smelt die off – and the smallies would come up – 15-30 at a time – when you had one hooked in October….

That was crazy – seeing 30 3lb + smallies going crazy for a bite of bait…

Dog

It’s actually very common with schooling fish….and even more so with Smallmouth…

Someone needs to develop a bait that mimics a regurgitated piece of food

I was actually at a small lake this past weekend where we had a swarm of no less then 30 smallies follow up a hooked fish. 3-5 fish following up is fairly common, but I had never seen anything like that in my life. So awesome!