Crawing for Smallmouth

This was the first time my father-in-law has gone out this year, and it turned out to be a pretty good day.  My brother came down from the NEK to join us and we headed up to the islands to one of our familiar haunts.  The forecast called for rain, but when we got there, it was surprisingly calm.  I haven't been fishing much lately as the boats been in for repairs, so I wasn't exactly sure how the smallmouth were behaving or in what depth they were in.  After a half hour and some moving, my brother boated the first fish of the day.

Shortly after, my father-in-law,Craig, caught two off a deep diving rebel crawfish.  The second one gave him quite a fight.  Tighten the drag! Tighten the drag!

We picked up a few more, and finally figured out a pattern.  We used gary yamamoto hula grubs on jig heads and either dragged or hopped them on the bottom in 12-15 feet of water.  This worked well for us as the waves had picked up considerably and fishing with senkos became out of the question.

This little guy was the ticket.

I managed to net my biggest smallmouth of the year at 3lbs. 12oz. off the hula grub.  He put on quite a show and I'm glad to have caught and released him safely.   I am also using 8lb. monofilament cajun line, and I must say that for the price of this stuff and the quality I see in it, I think I am hooked.

Smallmouth are becoming my bass of choice.  Less Northerns around compared to Largemouth habitat.  Find rocks and find smallmouth.  Tight lines.