Ham's big smallmouth

[Quillback]

Jigfest is usually about the trout, but we did run across some smallmouth.  Friday I fished in Ham's boat along with John's Folly and between the 3 of us we boated about a dozen smallmouth and several largemouth in between trout catches.  And we got some really nice chunky smallmouth, anywhere from 13-18" long, and we caught them on Zig jigs.

Ham caught one that was really exceptional, measured around 22" in his net and pulled the Boga grip scales down to the 6 lb. mark.  Biggest Arkansas smallmouth I have ever personally eyeballed and I believe Ham said it was the biggest he's caught.  Now we did do a quick measurement and weigh, Ham is a stickler for taking care of fish and getting them back in the water as soon as possible, so we didn't get an exact weight or length.  All that being said, it was really a nice fish, and sure was fun watching Ham catch it.

It was a bulldogger, never jumped, just stayed down and pulled.

Some pics of the fight and in the net.

 

 

 

Here's a couple more chunks:

 

 

 

 

 

[rps]

Trout, schmout. Who cares?

On the other hand those are great smallmouths! Well done, gentlemen!

 

[fishinwrench]

Heck yeah !! 

Good job, dudes.  👍

No fake news going on down there !

[Dutch]

Some real nice brown fish there guys.  Congrats.

[Terrierman]

Nice ones.  Good job fellers!

[Smalliebigs]

Nice Smallie but, that don’t look 22 inches but, it looks like a very nice  one though 

[Quillback]

Well we could be conservative and say 21" and 5 lbs.  That's as low as I'll go.  Pictures never do fish justice as far as size, and short of it being on a certified scale (with pics thereof), there's always going to be disputes over the size.  Ham's 6'2" and that fish is not long armed, and if you look closely you'll see there's a bend in the fish curving inwards towards the camera.  That 2nd fish Ham is holding,  I believe measured 18 or 19" and it is dwarfed by the bigger fish.  

[netboy]

Very nice smallmouth... I think the biggest I have caught up here in the last year and a half that we have been here was 18" from Crooked Creek. Ham's fish was much bigger.

[moguy1973]

That’s a hog.  Looks like it’s been eating rather well. 

[Ham]

2 hours ago, Quillback said:

Well we could be conservative and say 21" and 5 lbs.  That's as low as I'll go.  Pictures never do fish justice as far as size, and short of it being on a certified scale (with pics thereof), there's always going to be disputes over the size.  Ham's 6'2" and that fish is not long armed, and if you look closely you'll see there's a bend in the fish curving inwards towards the camera.  That 2nd fish Ham is holding,  I believe measured 18 or 19" and it is dwarfed by the bigger fish.  

Ham’s 6’5” and tends to make fish look small. 

I use the net with measuring built in to get a quick and gentle measurement. That fish was either 22 inches or really darn close like 21 3/4 inches. 

I don’r Worry about weight much, but we had the bogs handy so why not. I expected over 5, but was very surprised when the bogs said 6. I’ll try it at the grocery store and see if it is close to accurate. 

It was a heck of a fish that I was honestly shocked by. Biggest smallmouth I’ve ever caught and I’ve caught more than a couple.