Warm weather had um active! 12/15 report

[LittleRedFisherman]

Yesterday I had one of those opportunites I get only this time of year with my occupation.  I went to the farm shop about 930 to work on a project, and it was dead calm, bluebird sky, bout 50 degrees already, and I had to move my boat out of the shop to work on my project.  Well, when I hooked the boat up, I decided to forget the project and take advantage of a golden opportunity, I can work on that any cold day in the shop, days like this in Dec. are a gift, so I grabbed my poles and tackle and headed to the river. 

I was going to have about 4 hours or so to fish as I had to be back for my daughters basketball game, so I went as close as I could to home.  I had seen a post on facebook recently where a guy had caught a dandy, and have been chatting with Mitch a little the other day about Fall patterns still active with the warmer weather, so that was my plan.  The river was up some from the recent rain, but it wasn't blown out, just a little green stain, which I llike.  Once again, I took my usual 5 poles, but I stayed with a slow finesse type pattern for the most part.  Basically looking for slower water areas near some current.  Well, that patteren didn't disappoint, managed to catch 15 to 20 in about 4 hours, it wasn't hot action, but it was evenly spread out over the time spent on the water, and the quality was good.  Largest was a 17 incher, with 2 more round 15, plus a few largemouth and a crappie even to put the icing on a great December afternoon on the water. 

My knee jerk decision to go fishing, instead of working on my 36 Ford project turned out to be a wise one!  This was a lot more fun than running a sandblaster!

[snagged in outlet 3]

Nice!

I pulled that off Saturday myself.

6 total in 2 hours, plus swung and missed that many.

5 keepers one 18 inches, all largemouth on the Ned.

I didn't pull out that new jerkbait yet, but I will.

You have all winter to work on the truck.

Pete

[Seth]

We caught 7 or 8 on crankbaits on Saturday evening in the last few hours of the day. The quality wasn't much though. Our biggest was only 14".  Tried jigs and couldn't get a bite. Water was 50-52 degrees on the Gasconade.

[MOsmallies]

Well done Bret... Thanks for sharing!

[Mitch f]

Nice job man!!

[LittleRedFisherman]

Thanks guys... It was hard not to do the same thing today, but I did actually work on the ole truck today.... it was breezier but still would of been another great day..  After a brief cooldown, next week is looking warm again in the forcast. 

[drew03cmc]

Well done. I was just wondering if this warm weather had the patterns a bit screwed up.

[Smallieguy87]

I rarely if ever get to do any sort of fishing once mid fall hits and man is it tough to deal with! Thanks for the post and pictures! I'll be living vicariously through this post!

[Al Agnew]

Some of the best big smallmouth fishing I've ever had is under those conditions...a long, strong warm spell in late fall or early winter.  I caught 4 19-21 inchers in one short afternoon one time in late November when the weather had been so warm the water temps were up close to 60 degrees, and it was on a part of Big River where I've never done particularly well during normal late fall/winter conditions.  Caught them on my homemade spinnerbait and a buzzbait.