Walking The Dog For Smallmouth

[mic]

Gents,

Sorry for all the new guy questions, but I'm going to try to catch my first smallmouth this weekend. You know they say your best lure is the one your are most confident with...well my favorite and most productive largemouth lure is a Zara "Puppy" Spook. I LOVE walking the puppy. Before I went to Germany for awhile, I could even pick the direction I would walk it. I busted it out for the first time in two years this weekend on a farm pond and pulled in a nice three pounder when not much else was working.

Will that work on river smallmouth?

[Gavin]

Yes....but I like the Lucky Craft Sammy 100, and the Gunfish 95 allot better than a spook...the G-Splash is good too.

[mic]

Yes....but I like the Lucky Craft Sammy 100, and the Gunfish 95 allot better than a spook...the G-Splash is good too.

Sweet...I'll have to give them a try.

[moguy1973]

Just caught a 2lbs/2oz LMB at my local park on a Sammy 100 in chartruese shad. Can't wait to try this thing on a smally stream. Not sure if I'll get a chance yet this year or not. My weekends are quickly booking up.

[Ham]

hey mic, the puppy works just fine. I wish I believed the Sammies and Gunfish were lots better than a spook (jr or puppy) because I own more than a few and I would feel better about having dropped the cash on them.

[rps]

Hey all: I am such a WTD addict I have surgery scheduled for the rotator cuff injury I imposed on myself. Sammy's are great, but spooks of any size can match them - with a touch more "walkin" touch. Find the bait that you have confidence in and fish it often and aggressively. See my avatar for my choice.

[ollie]

Call me a spook fan! Ok, that didn't sound right.

[Al Agnew]

We just had a long thread on this a few weeks ago...I like the Sammy's rattling sound better than the Spook Jr., and except for small wading size creeks I believe the Puppy is just a little too small. But there's no doubt the Spooks work.

I didn't post this a couple weeks ago when it happened because you all might be tired of hearing me talk about catching lots of fish, but after the trip to my "secret" creek that I posted, my brother and I floated another small, marginally floatable, not well known creek before I went back to Montana. It was a Sammy day. I paddled all day while my brother fished, although I slipped in enough casts to catch some myself, but between the two of us we caught over 100 bass, nearly all smallmouth, with well over half of them better than 12 inches and 15 between 17 and 19.5 inches (plus a 20 inch largemouth) in a ten mile float. And as is true to form for the Sammy or many other walk the dog lures, we had blowups from probably twice as many nice fish as we actually boated. It was my first time on this stretch in perhaps ten years, and I was amazed at the number of really good fish. We tried some other lures, and my brother did catch a few on a tube when they'd blow up on the Sammy and miss, but other than a few I caught on my twin spin, the Sammy was doing the job. We did try the Gunfish and a Pop-R, with no takers on the Pop-R and just a couple on the Gunfish. But mostly we just fished the Sammy 100.

[mic]

We just had a long thread on this a few weeks ago...I like the Sammy's rattling sound better than the Spook Jr., and except for small wading size creeks I believe the Puppy is just a little too small. But there's no doubt the Spooks work.

I didn't post this a couple weeks ago when it happened because you all might be tired of hearing me talk about catching lots of fish, but after the trip to my "secret" creek that I posted, my brother and I floated another small, marginally floatable, not well known creek before I went back to Montana. It was a Sammy day. I paddled all day while my brother fished, although I slipped in enough casts to catch some myself, but between the two of us we caught over 100 bass, nearly all smallmouth, with well over half of them better than 12 inches and 15 between 17 and 19.5 inches (plus a 20 inch largemouth) in a ten mile float. And as is true to form for the Sammy or many other walk the dog lures, we had blowups from probably twice as many nice fish as we actually boated. It was my first time on this stretch in perhaps ten years, and I was amazed at the number of really good fish. We tried some other lures, and my brother did catch a few on a tube when they'd blow up on the Sammy and miss, but other than a few I caught on my twin spin, the Sammy was doing the job. We did try the Gunfish and a Pop-R, with no takers on the Pop-R and just a couple on the Gunfish. But mostly we just fished the Sammy 100.

Al...

I don't want to be like you...I want to be you.

[E Green]

are these actual names of particular individual lures, the style of lure or the brand names (spooks, craft sammy 100, gunfish etc..)?

I seem to always go back to crankbaits because that is what I have had the most success with in the two summers I have lived and fished here in the MO Ozarks (mostly farm ponds, a couple MDC ponds and the Current River) I see many other people using plastic worms and I just don't do it right for some reason...seem to set the hook about 10% of the time...I don't own a canoe yet so i am always fishing from shore in the ponds and wade fishing in the Current.

I would like to look into these other lures listed above...good idea for the type of fishing I am currently doing?