Smallies

[DUB]

Been getting on the smallies on and off when I get free time past few months up at Lake James, NC.
Love the fight of these fish. Jig Jig BOOOOOM!

Anyone else go after smallies?

*Yes, I can largemouth as well but not at this Lake.
*I also saltwater fish but that is for Reds.

-DUB-

 

[NEhomer]

Ounce for ounce Smallies are one of the toughest fighters in fresh water. We have a local river where we've caught them up to 19-20 inches.

 

[DUB]

Exactly. Love the fight. This lake we pull out over 20 inchers a lot. Gets ridiculous at times.. hahah

-DUB-

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

I predominantly catch largemouth and pike, whenever I hook up with a smallmouth I think one of two things 1. Am I snagged? or 2. What the hell do I have on here?

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Love me some bass fishin... Go pond hoppin in the valley quite frequently when I have the time. Mainly just love the fight and seein the size of the pigs that I bring up. Catch & release.

 

[DUB]

@MAIZEandBLUE09 agreed. those smallies can hit. lately we have been trolling in the boat and one of two things happen. 1. They hit and shoot straight up from 25 feet of water so you have to reel in like a mad man to get the slack reeled in or they get off. 2. They hit that sucker and pull the set drag and it's game on. I like the drag pullers. hahaha.

@FaCe-LeE-uS nice! pond jumpin is fun times. I agree with catch and release. I'm all about that. I only keep some salt water fish from time to time... almost never fresh water.

-DUB-

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Love me some bass fishin... Go pond hoppin in the valley quite frequently when I have the time. Mainly just love the fight and seein the size of the pigs that I bring up. Catch & release.

I always catch and release bass....but every so often I accidentally kill one. Last year I gill-hooked a smallie and took it back, threw it on the fire in foil with some butter....and damn it was good.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

[USER=5030]@FaCe-LeE-uS nice! pond jumpin is fun times. I agree with catch and release. I'm all about that. I only keep some salt water fish from time to time... almost never fresh water.

-DUB-[/USER]

In my neck of the woods we have a plethora of ponds. Mostly residential areas but they are stocked with decent sized bass. I've seen some monsters but haven't caught one yet. The residents in the neighborhoods barely fish those ponds, if at all, so those fat bastards are just feeding year 'round.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

I always catch and release bass....but every so often I accidentally kill one. Last year I gill-hooked a smallie and took it back, threw it on the fire in foil with some butter....and damn it was good.

I'd only eat one that came from a lake... I'd never eat one from the small ponds I catch most of them in. They'd probably taste like wet garbage

 

[DUB]

Pond fishing is very underrated for good fish and good fun. However, a lot of places by me will call the cops on you in a second if you don't live in that neighborhood. I will confess we have 2 ponds in mine and I got signs up that say catch and release for residents only. I had to do this because people would come from all over with buckets and keep anything and everythign they caught. Treated a pond like a damn lake. Plus the asshats that think leaving sh##$# behind is normal. Pisses me off. I do my best to hawk eye and bust asshats in our neighborhood. (I am fine with a person not living here but the 2 other things have left tainted taste and it's those people that do both of those things that ruin it for others in other locations too.)

-DUB-

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Pond fishing is very underrated for good fish and good fun. However, a lot of places by me will call the cops on you in a second if you don't live in that neighborhood. I will confess we have 2 ponds in mine and I got signs up that say catch and release for residents only. I had to do this because people would come from all over with buckets and keep anything and everythign they caught. Treated a pond like a damn lake. Plus the asshats that think leaving sh##$# behind is normal. Pisses me off. I do my best to hawk eye and bust asshats in our neighborhood. (I am fine with a person not living here but the 2 other things have left tainted taste and it's those people that do both of those things that ruin it for others in other locations too.)

-DUB-

The neighborhood I grew up in had two pretty small lakes, bigger than ponds but small enough where calling it a lake seems odd (they don't even allow motors on boats), anyway -- we had the same problem. Everyone was coming from all over the place because the fishing was fantastic, tons of bluegill and largemouth. It had pike in it but they were literally fished clean to the point where they no longer have pike in them. I hate the people who don't understand that just because there's a daily limit, that you can continuously catch that limit on a small body of water and not kill off the population. You could do it with the bluegill, but as mentioned -- overfishing killed all the pike in the lake. Pissed me off when we started catching fewer and fewer and then just stopped catching them all together. My parents still live there and I still fish there quite often, haven't caught one there in 20+ years now.

Fun story though, the lakes are man made and 10-15 years ago they drained them to dredge the bottom of all the silt. When they were doing that they drained the upper lake dredged it and then filled it and drained the lower lake. Anyway, we spent all summer catching as many fish as possible and throwing it into the other lake. There's these monster bass in both lakes now that we call "legacy" bass because they have to be ones we swapped in there. The rest are all the identical size (10'').

 

[Chewbaccer]

Never caught a small mouth before. They're not very common around here. Caught plenty of stripers, largemouth, spots and red eyes when it comes to bass, but no small mouths.

But as for the pound for pound strength of the fish, I'd say a regular old blue gill or bream would rank up there. A bream the size of your hand puts up a better fight than a 2 pound largemouth, and I've caught a few big bream nearly the size of a frying pan and I thought I was reeling in Moby Dick.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

They are the only bass to catch in the upper Potomac where I fish a lot, even the small ones fight like crazy as they fight a current all day and night and are strong as Hell.

There's a pick your own farm down the road that has this awesome lake for irrigation. I drive by it all the time and would love to fish it. But it's limited to the workers and that's fair. If they let me do it every jack hole in the area will do it and yes leave their trash.