6.3 Smallmouth today

[Johnsfolly]

That is a giant river smallie! With a fish of that size I would love to see him holding it up with two hands ,

[moguy1973]

18 hours ago, Smalliebigs said:

easily and I will say it does......Jeff's fish was 22.5 inches and not as fat as it could be. The state record from Stockton was a hair under 22 inches

My 4lb-8oz one in my avatar was 21.5".  Guess it had some eating to do.

[Guest]

Deleted.

 

 

[moguy1973]

Just now, siusaluki said:

 

 

Fish will vary in weight throughout the year.  They never get shorter. If it was caught in late april/May, it would weigh considerably less after spawning.  The fact that he caught a 22.5" is just as impressive as the weight to me.  Northern strain smallmouth never seem to get much longer than 23" from what I have seen, and most of the 8 and 9 lbers from the great lakes fish are 22-23" grouper shaped fish.  Tennessee strain smallies can get to the 24-25" range and are longer and leaner compared to northern strain smallies.

Mine was caught in mid-October. 

[Seth]

Fish length is really the main factor of how old a fish is as weights can vary drastically depending on how thick the fish are.

This is one Schultz caught a few years ago in late May or early June that was 22" long and weighed 4.28.


This is one a buddy caught in the fall that was between 22-23" and didn't even weigh 3lbs. An 18 incher that was fat almost beat him out for big bass that day.

[Seth]

The abundance of shad on the Gasconade last year helped fatten up the smallmouth like I've never seen before. There were a lot of 3+ smallmouth caught and several over 4. Quite a few 20+" fish were weighed in throughout the year, but a few were the typical skinny summer fish that didn't make the 4lbs mark. I'm not sure if it had an affect or not, but there was essentially zero gigging done the previous fall/winter. There wasn't much gigging done this year either overall. I'll be curious to see if the trend of nice smallmouth continues. What's weird is that even though the smallmouth seemed to be doing extremely well, the largemouth fishing sucked. There were zero largemouth over 3lbs caught all last season on the Gasconade that I am aware of. There are usually quite a few 3s caught and a few that break 4.

This was a 21 incher that weighed 3.45.


The big one in this picture weighed 4.22.


This one was 4.05 and not quite 19". Probably the fattest river small mouth I've ever seen.


Those boys followed that one up with a 4.60 the very next weekend!

[FishnDave]

33 minutes ago, siusaluki said:

Fish will vary in weight throughout the year.  They never get shorter.   The fact that he caught a 22.5" is just as impressive as the weight to me.  

Yes, exactly.  Length means more to me than weight.  About the only time weight matters is when you get a new State Record, or close to it.

My biggest smallmouth was a 20-incher caught in northern Illinois.  I released it and didn't have a camera with me that day.  I was super-bummed.

Several friends have caught bigger ones in the Des Moines River, but I haven't been that lucky yet.  Most of the big smallies in Iowa come from West Okoboji Lake.

You guys are sure getting some really nice ones in Missouri!!  That's great!!

[Smalliebigs]

3 hours ago, moguy1973 said:

My 4lb-8oz one in my avatar was 21.5".  Guess it had some eating to do.

Jim that Smallie was a giant dawg.....most people have never even come close to that around here. I find most are just guessing on size and weights and in that process stroking their egos and inflating the length and weight. 

[Smalliebigs]

3 hours ago, Seth said:

The abundance of shad on the Gasconade last year helped fatten up the smallmouth like I've never seen before. There were a lot of 3+ smallmouth caught and several over 4. Quite a few 20+" fish were weighed in throughout the year, but a few were the typical skinny summer fish that didn't make the 4lbs mark. I'm not sure if it had an affect or not, but there was essentially zero gigging done the previous fall/winter. There wasn't much gigging done this year either overall. I'll be curious to see if the trend of nice smallmouth continues. What's weird is that even though the smallmouth seemed to be doing extremely well, the largemouth fishing sucked. There were zero largemouth over 3lbs caught all last season on the Gasconade that I am aware of. There are usually quite a few 3s caught and a few that break 4.

This was a 21 incher that weighed 3.45.


The big one in this picture weighed 4.22.


This one was 4.05 and not quite 19". Probably the fattest river small mouth I've ever seen.


Those boys followed that one up with a 4.60 the very next weekend!

holy crap some of those Gasconade smallies are just emaciated looking.......I have always caught longer skinny ones there

[Smalliebigs]

6 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

That is a giant river smallie! With a fish of that size I would love to see him holding it up with two hands ,

not sure what yer talking about there??? are you saying you would rather Jeff lip a fish with Two hands versus One??? if so that is a new one......or are you saying he should have held it horizontally with Two hands, which makes no sense at all because then you are putting massive pressure on the fishes jaw if you don't support it's body but, he wasn't holding it like that???