Lloyd

Speaking of state record smallmouth, this story cracked me up. Dude caught what would have broken the Vermont record by 10 oz., but wifey wanted fishcakes! https://www.compassvermont.com/p/he-settled-for-the-unofficial-largest

I realize I'm not Al Agnew but I can't help weighing in on this. The official state record smallmouth was 7 lb.s, 2 oz., and I don't think it's a coincidence that it was caught in a reservoir, not a creek. I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly unlikely.

Totally agree with this classification. Here's the way I see it: 10 - 12 inches: I'd rather catch 'em than not. 12 - 16 inches: hell yeah these are really fun fish. 17 inches: bread and butter big fish. I'm taking a picture. 18 inches: beasts, but still fairly common. 19 inches: elite stream smallmouth 20+: legendary monster

I'm sure that guy's a REALLY good fisherman, like Jimmy Houston status. And he's not gonna be impressed until you show him a 30 inch smallmouth 🤣.

This reminded me of an encounter I had with a swimmer on my favorite creek last summer. We were near the upstream end of the smallmouth habitat on this creek, but he told me I should try about a mile upstream. He said there was an amazing hole where as a kid he caught huge bass, some of them over 20 lb.s. I just smiled and said "wow, very impressive!" 😆

Sorry to hear this. One summer day in the late 90s I was chasing stripers with a buddy of mine around Menemsha, a fishing village on the north side of Martha's Vineyard. When we pulled up to the dock who did we see but Flip Pallot. We had watched many episodes of The Walkers Cay Chronicles and I was in equal parts awe and disbelief. But my brazen friend, who at the time was about 15 years old, walked straight up to Flip and asked if he'd like to join us on his 13 foot Boston Whaler. And Flip said sure, why not? He was short on time so we only motored a few hundred feet down the channel before dropping anchor, putting us within casting range of a sandy flat where stripers cruised. It was mid-day and the water was super clear, so I didn't expect to catch anything on artificials. Live mackerel had been the ticket for those conditions. But Flip pulled out a streamer and began working the current seams with his fly rod, and within about 20 minutes he nailed a decent bass. My friend and I were throwing jointed plugs on spinning gear and we couldn't conjure a single hit. The entire time Flip was as friendly as could be, asking us all about our recent adventures and regaling us with a few tales of his own. Soon after that we had to head back to the dock, but the memory was made. Flip Pallot was a great fisherman, and a gentleman.

Very nice! Congrats, John!! Great pictures, too 😀.

That's awesome. One of my regular creeks has a lot of smallmouth, but it's heavily pressured for its entire length. The other one gets a lot less attention, but it only has about half the flow and many of the good pools have silted in over the last few years. I really want to find a few more of those under the radar creeks (which is presumably becoming harder and harder), even if that means driving an additional half hour each way. Let's just say I spend a lot of time on Google maps :).

Congrats on your move! I'm 60 - 75 miles from some good creeks. If that number were 20 and I were fishing 4 days a week, it might change my perspective a bit.

Yeah, I strongly prefer artificials as well, but in those situations where there are big bass in front of me and they aren't eating my lures (maybe because they're inactive, or because they see me, or because my lures look ridiculous and nothing like the prey they supposedly represent), I will resort to live craws or minnows if they're available. And they almost always get it done. IMO the big downsides to live bait are: 1) getting it is often a challenge, 2) keeping it frisky on your hook is another challenge, 3) you can't cover much water with it, and 4) it's a pretty boring way to fish.

I get to creek fish three times per month at best, so maybe 10 - 15 trips per year. Given that my time on the water is priceless, I don't mind paying a little more to have the best possible lure for the job. Fortunately, flukes are cheap :).

Can you catch live crayfish at your creek? As WestCentral said, if you can see the fish, they can see you, but as long as they're not spooked it's rare that they won't slurp a well presented craw.

They definitely stocked it last winter. I caught a few.

Dang, what a huge bummer. On the flip side, I'm impressed that anyone (I assume it was MDC?) was collecting data on a pond as small as Walker.

In my experience it's not easy to consistently catch bass in the summer in most St. Louis area ponds. The prespawn period (March - April) is about 10x better both for size and numbers. In the summer there are days when the fish are biting like crazy, but they are few and far between. I think a lot of the ponds have healthy populations of bass, but all the fishing pressure has a very negative impact on catch rates.