Members fstaskiewicz Posted June 10, 2015 Members Posted June 10, 2015 As promised following our inaugural visit to Table Rock in late April, my son and I packed up Ned and took him north for some serious smallmouth bass fishing in the northeast South Dakota glacial lakes region. We fished Thursday through Sunday last week, and the results were pretty impressive, convincing and decisive. Since my 75-year-old dad was along on this three-generation fishing trip, we split time between hammering huge bluegills and slab crappies, and targeting smallmouths. And about a third of our smallmouth fishing was done with topwater baits. But when we hit our favorite rocky spots in 7 to 12 feet of water though, Ned ruled! The first two days of the trip my son and dad used plastic craws and caught fish. I threw a ⅛-ounce Ned rig and caught smallies too, along with a few jumbo crappies up to 13 inches. But the tide turned early Saturday morning when my son and I passed on topwaters due to the wind and went right to soft plastics. I boated a pair of nice bass on my first two casts with Ned. We had 11 before we went back in to have breakfast. Just two came on a craw. Point made. Sunday, our final day of the trip, we threw topwaters the first 90 minutes until the sun got too high, then all three of us turned to Ned rigs and deeper water and just hammered the smallies. In about 5 ½ hours Ned terrorized the bronzeback population as we caught and released 34 smallmouths, including 10 that measured 18 inches or better, the minimum length to qualify for South Dakota Proud Angler citations. My son got the biggest at 19 inches. One of those bass had my Ned in its throat, apparently from the day before when my fluorocarbon leader knot broke at the jig on a hook set. On a couple of side notes, we enjoyed 62- to 63-degree water and what appeared to be prime time spawn/post-spawn bass. Also, we did not lose a single jig in the rocks. The mushrooms heads always came free from those smooth stones and boulders with a little encouragement, or by just backing over them. So a huge thanks goes out to our southern brethren for introducing us to this great bait. We now have a new highly effective weapon in our arsenal for fooling big smallmouths, and apparently crappies too, in our favorite places to target brown bass. I’m heading back to South Dakota in a couple weeks to fish one of the Missouri River reservoirs, Lake Francis Case, for walleyes and smallies. You can bet I’ll always have a Ned rig tied on. I’m hoping Ned will also turn out to be an effective walleye bait as well. We’ll know soon enough. mjk86, jmb123, Muddy Water and 4 others 7
aarchdale@coresleep.com Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 I wish our smallmouth down here looked like that
Champ188 Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Great trip and great report. And I think you'll find the walleyes fond of the Ned, too. They are on Table Rock.
Members fstaskiewicz Posted June 10, 2015 Author Members Posted June 10, 2015 They are tanks up there! And these fishe were spawned out! You should see the ones we caught last fall when they were putting on the feed bag for winter. Looked like they might explode.
Members jmb123 Posted June 10, 2015 Members Posted June 10, 2015 Small world. Heading to Francis Case the 1st week of July after a family reunion in Yankton. My uncle's guiding us for walleyes but I'd love to play with some healthy smallies too. I've been experimenting with ned on Beaver Lake a couple times now too...you all know how that experiment goes! I'll be bringing a couple just in case.
Members fstaskiewicz Posted June 10, 2015 Author Members Posted June 10, 2015 Small world. Heading to Francis Case the 1st week of July after a family reunion in Yankton. My uncle's guiding us for walleyes but I'd love to play with some healthy smallies too. I've been experimenting with ned on Beaver Lake a couple times now too...you all know how that experiment goes! I'll be bringing a couple just in case. I hear FC is a very good smallmouth lake too. The walleye fishing is very good as well. Never been there, so this will be a new adventure for me. Going with my three brothers-in-law on our 24th annual trip together. The four of us should be be able to figure things out quickly. I'll be happy to give you a report if you want to track me down before your trip.
mjk86 Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 I wish our smallmouth down here looked like that Ya no kidding!! Although....a guy just caught a 6+ lb fish outta stockton not too long ago! We got some monsters!! (walleye too!)
Hunter53 Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Great trip!!! Wife and I will be at roy and clear in SD the middle of July. If there are other lakes we should look at up there let me know.
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