Your first "big" smallmouth?

[Al Agnew]

Just for fun, I thought I'd ask everybody if they can remember their first memorable smallmouth.  I'm not setting any kind of size limit, but would like it to be the first one you caught that you thought deserved the adjective "big".  Not necessarily "trophy".

I'll start...when I was a teenager, about 15 or so, I'd caught a LOT of smallies from Big River near my house that were 14-15 inches, and I think at that point my biggest had been 18 inches or so.  I thought that was a terrific fish.  But my buddy Rick and I had talked a parent into shuttling us for a three day float on a section of the river we had only fished a few times, from the Highway 67 bridge north of Bonne Terre to Washington State Park.  At the time, I'd started a fishing diary.  Up until then, it was strictly a report of each of my fishing trips, but this was epic enough (we'd never done a three day trip before) that I'd written about our plan for it in the diary.  And at the end of the entry, I'd said, "And I really think this could be the trip where I catch a 4 pound or better smallmouth!"

The first day was a bit of a disappointment, because it had rained the night before, and the river was very murky, though it hadn't risen much.  We caught fish, but nothing special.  We camped for the night at the Big Sandy Hole, a great catfish hole a mile or so above what was then known as Cole's Landing.  The second day, we continued down the river.  We'd captured some hellgramites, and the first really nice fish came on one of them early that morning, a 17 incher.  Then, we came to a spot that would produce a number of big fish over the later years for me, just a narrowing of the river channel between two long, slow pools.  The constriction was caused by a big hollow entering the river there that had dumped rocks in a little delta, just narrowing it enough to speed the current a bit.  Not a riffle, just a bit of nice current.  I was using a 2 3/4th inch floating Rapala, which was my favorite smallmouth lure at the time.  I so clearly remember twitching that Rapala on the surface next to a rock about the size of a beach ball, in 3 feet of water off the point of that bar, and seeing that big smallmouth come up and engulf it.  I was using spinning tackle, a Garcia 314 reel and Garcia rod, probably 8 pound test line.  The fight had my heart pounding.  And when I lipped the smallmouth, I knew I'd gotten my 4 pound or better smallie.  It was a little over 20 inches, and weighed just slightly over 4 pounds on the set of De-Liar scales I always carried back then.  

We didn't keep it.  Second day of a three day trip, and we didn't have a good way of preserving it, since our ice was already about gone.  I don't remember much of anything about the fishing after that, or even exactly where we spent the second night.  But I sure remember that fish.   

[moguy1973]

**edited to add the story**

This one.  21" 4 1/2lb out of the lower Meramec.  I was off for Columbus day a few years ago so I went to this part of the Meramec that has been known in the past for big smallmouth but its rare.  There was one piece of cover in the water in the form of a 3-4" log that was half up on the bank and half down into the water.  There's an eddy that forms right there and the log was on the upstream flow of the eddy.  I started with a walk the dog lure that kept getting leaves caught in the hooks on the retrieve but on one cast I got lucky and was leaf free when it got around the log and BAM!, I missed it as it was only a couple feet off bank and it startled me.  After a few more leaf cluttered casts I switched over to a white BPS buzz toad so I wouldn't get as many leaves on the hook.  2nd cast with the buzz toad and BAM! he hit it again only this time I had him hooked.  I actually thought I had something other than a small mouth at first because it didn't fight much, but then I saw it was this beauty and I just kind of dragged it up on the bank since, again, it was only a few feet off the bank.

I've had a couple three pounders but they were only 18" long and not nearly as impressive as this one.

[fishinwrench]

My first memorable big Smallie was one my Papaw caught one June day after church. I was just out of 4th grade so I guess I was 9, soon to be 10. He had limb lines set with big goldfish and had caught several big flatheads during the week prior, so we would "run the lines" twice a day and bass fish as we moved up and down Middle Fork of the Salt (this was pre-Cannon dam).   He had a custom glass flyrod, brown and wrapped in dark red, an aluminum UMCO box half full of his top-secret yellow poppers in various sizes, and an assortment of other fuzzy patterns that I don't think he ever fished at all.  We were 4 goldfish short of being able to bait all the lines so he had me flailing a little black McGinty looking wetfly and my job was to catch 4 bluegill or sunfish that were just about the size of my half-grown hands....and once I had that done he'd give me a popper to throw.   

We had baited up 6-7 lines and were drifting towards the next one which was about 100 yards downstream. He sat in the front of the Jon boat sculling us along with one hand and taking shots along the bank with the other, and I stood in the back flinging my crap around... like a 10 year old.... and I probably could have caught my 4 sunfish in no time at all if my fly would have ever stayed in the water for more than 2 seconds.  Papaw wasn't one to coach you while you were fishing, instead he'd wait until you were on the ride home and THEN he would point out everything you did wrong that day. And if you did it again the next time....again you'd hear about it on the way home.  "Remember that ---- you were doing the time before?   Well you're still doing it."

So we are headed to the next limb line, had just worked over the mouth of a little slough without a bite and were coming to a steep rocky bank with a line of scattered clumps of weeds.  He dropped his popper along the downstream edge of the first weed clump, leaving the near edge for me....even though he knew darn well I wasn't gonna hit it, and I'll never forget what happened next.  The weeds parted like someone had just drug a log slowly through them, he gave the popper a healthy BLOOP and then without even the slightest ripple the popper just disappeared.  He dropped the paddle (in the river), grabbed his line and the old brown rod went up... then went down HARD.  The fish ran him down to the next clump of weeds and when that hog came out of the water was the very first time that I ever got away with saying a cuss word out loud...especially on a Sunday.  

He got her landed after another good jump and several hard runs. She was probably 19", maybe 20+, it's hard to say since I had been accustomed to wrestling big flatheads and there's a possibility that my eye was just off,  but man she was FAT.  The size of her body made her head look small, but that tail was, as my mind recalls now, damnear as wide as the paddle. And speaking of the paddle...it was now about 50 feet in front of us floating downstream and was our only means of propulsion, but neither of us cared.   My Papaw was a fun happy guy but he was also what you'd call "rough around the edges" and just wasn't a person that did alot of smiling. When I recall the grin across his face while he was holding that fat smallmouth it chokes me up everytime. I'm almost 100% positive that he lived his whole entire life with nobody but ME ever seeing him smile like that.     

So the legend lives on 

[Hunter75]

I was fishing a tournament at Table Rock with my dad around 15 years ago when I caught my first memorable and still to this date biggest smallie. We had been throwing crankbaits all day and had a pretty decent limit in the boat and were looking for a big fish. Dad hung his crankbait up on one of the cedar stumps that were only a couple feet or so underwater. When he pulled the boat up to get it unhung I saw another stump with a nice fish sitting right under it. I grabbed my spinning rod which had a 6 inch finesse worm on a slider head tied on and dropped right down in front of the fish. Never saw the fish move but watched the worm just disappear. I set the hook and and the fight was on. I had 6 lb mono on that reel and was not sure I could get her out of the stump. With a bit of effort and a lot of luck I manged to get her out of the stump and out past the other stumps to clear water where I could play her out. Dad was finally able to net her and we had our kicker fish. On our way to weigh in my dad made me a deal. His exact words were "nice smallie, tell you what, if she makes 5 lbs I will have her mounted for you." I was young and new to tournament fishing and I was praying for that fish to be 5 lbs all the way to the ramp. We get back and went to weigh in, I am so amped up I couldn't stand still. They weigh my smallie for big bass and the scale read 4.98. I ended up winning big bass and we took 3rd overall. I should have been happy we placed and won big bass but I was heatbroken as I watched her swim away, I really wanted a wall hanger. To be honest, if I were to catch one worthy of mounting today i would have to have a replica made, they are so realistic and look so good, and the fish gets to live to be caught another day.

[Seth]

My biggest smallmouth to date was a 20.5" I caught on the middle Gasconade. It was a Thursday evening and me, my brother and my fiance ran to the river for a few hours of fishing that evening after work. The was low and dirty and the fishing was slow. We was throwing a weightless trick worm and flipped it up between the bank and a log, twitch it a few times and a massive wake came up over the log and engulfed the bait. I reeled down and pull in to the fish and knew it was going to be my PB smallmouth as soon as the fight began. I didn't have a scale in the boat handy, but I'm sure it broke the 4# mark. We've caught a few 19.5" that were just shy of 4# and this one had an inch on those fish.

[Smalliebigs]

10 hours ago, moguy1973 said:

This one.  21" 4 1/2lb out of the lower Meramec.

I've had a couple three pounders but they were only 18" long and not nearly as impressive as this one.

Jim that is an absolute hawg!!!!.....I remember when you caught that and posted the pic. Congrats man!!!!.....awesome fish!!!!!

[Flysmallie]

October 1994. Pre-fishing for a tournament on Table Rock with my dad. We were in the Campbell Point area. Made a long cast up through some timber to a small secondary point with a spinnerbait. Was bringing it through when the whole world exploded and I am still truly surprised that we landed that fish. 5lbs 10ozs on the digitals we had in the boat. Swam away just as pissed off as it was when it first hit that bait. 

[Smalliebigs]

19 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

October 1994. Pre-fishing for a tournament on Table Rock with my dad. We were in the Campbell Point area. Made a long cast up through some timber to a small secondary point with a spinnerbait. Was bringing it through when the whole world exploded and I am still truly surprised that we landed that fish. 5lbs 10ozs on the digitals we had in the boat. Swam away just as pissed off as it was when it first hit that bait. 

WOW!!!!.....absolute beast

[Mitch f]

I don't have a pic of my biggest of 21" believe it or not. But I do have a pic of the biggest Smallmouth I've seen in a Missouri stream...and I took the pic.

[Smalliebigs]

My first what I considered "big" Smallie was definitely not my biggest but, at the time it was my crowning stream achievement. I think it was 1986 and I had just quit bait fishing really. I used to just drive around and fish bridges and see what I could come up with.

My go to bait then was 3 inch Mister Twister grub in Brown or White on a Ball jighead. I was a big olde gaper back then and trying to learn as fast as I could. Prior to the digital era I would take these disposable waterproof cameras from Walgreens out with me for pics. You had to take them back to get the film developed which was always a bit of a surprise to see how bad your photography skills were and whether or not the film had been compromised or not?? Which happened  a few times and seemed to happen when I had some good pics of big fish on the reels.

I had stumbled onto Marble Creek in one of my driving adventures and it was really fishing good back then. I had really only caught smallies up to 16 inches to that point but, was growing completely infatuated with them and stream fishing in general. My gaper arse was fishing with an Ugly Stick with a Cardinal reel and 6lb test line back then. I hooked up on a smallie that was a hair under 19 inches.....I was soo excited about that smallie and it ignited a fire in me for river and stream fishing that may never be extinguished.

I have caught bigger smallies but, this was the one that has fueled my passion for river and stream fishing for sure.  This pic isn't very good from this old reel of film