Who's been after some River springtime smallies yet?

[cReekFishin]

Fished the Finley a few times in the last week. Caught a few 14-15 inchers. All fat with eggs. Caught them on some hand dipped tubes that I made which made those fish even better. Also caught lots of goggle eye.

[Smallieguy87]

Smallieguy, how did you know the Mineral Fork was running 20,000 cfs? I am unaware of a USGS gauge there. Do you know what 20,000 cfs looks like?

There aren't any USGS gauges there. I was going off the gauges in Richwoods. No i don't know what 20,000 cfs looks like as i imagine its different for each stream/river depending on how narrow or wide the waterway maybe. The gauge at Richwoods was showing that it was running 8x the median flow.

[msamatt]

My buddy Dan and I fished the Big Piney Saturday in order to scout out some camping sites for our Rodeo in June. We were in the water by 8:30 and took out at 6. The father and sons combo who took forever to unload their 15" aluminum v bottom boat and river john (sans motors) were nowhere in sight at 6. Somehow I don't think they had a great time getting in and out of that big v bottom at every riffle and soaking their bad idea jeans all day long. I bet they were wore out by the end of the trip. The fish weren't very agressive though I did catch a couple 9 plus " goggle eye, a really fat 16" largemouth and several smallies, including a nice 15" on topwaters after lunch.

[Greasy B]

"The fish weren't very aggressive"

That was my experience as well. A day and a half spent fishing a sweet river brought only marginal results. I didnt see any sign of bedding but most of the fish were built like footballs and had plump bellies. The trip reminded me why I like the predictable nature of summer Smallmouth.

[hoglaw]

I've always fared a little better on crank baits and bigger than normal jigs when the bite is like this. I've been catching my creek fish on a wiggle wart, a robo worm on a flick shake head, and another finesse style bait that shall remain nameless for fear of reprisal from a couple of forum members who don't like folks helping others catch fish.

That little finesse bait is not one of my favorites and I don't bother to tie it on during the summer months in the creeks, but it's been producing some big smallmouth for me lately.

[Norm M]

I just kept on fishing from winter into spring for smallmouth on my river up in Illinois. Came home to tend to a couple things, then plan on checking another crick for rock bass.

still waiting for the sucker fishing to pick up .

[Guest]

Dont fish the bait that shall not be named. It will not catch any bass

[405z06]

Hit the Meramec on Sat, 9+ mile float ending near Onondoga. Couldn't get anything going, tried everything, 2 of us in a canoe and I dont think we caught 10 bass combined. I think the total was 2 largemouth, 1 spot (furthest upstream that I have ever caught a spot on the Meramec) and 5 smallies.

May is historically the month that I do best in terms of size on the rivers, so I have that to look forward to, but April has been a bust.

[Gavin]

have not been fishing since January. Gonna give it a go go this weekend.

[fishinwrench]

I don't get serious about river smallies until wet-wading is comfortable.

Me and the crazy pup are looking forward to it though.