It's a great time of year...

[Al Agnew]

After having my original jet boat for 20 years, and wanting to have a jet boat in Montana so that I can chase some smallmouth on the lower Yellowstone, I bought a new jet boat.  Mary actually kinda talked me into it--I love that woman!  The new one is a foot longer and 20 more horsepower, and I've had it out a few times and love it.  After 20 years, the trailer on the old boat really needed work.  The 2 x 4 wood, carpet covered bunks had basically rotted away until in places there wasn't much wood left and the boat was sitting on a layer of empty carpet.  I bought new wood and carpet and prepared the bunks for attachment, but then the fishing got good, and I was more interested in fishing than in working on a boat trailer that I didn't intend to use until I got it out to Montana. 

It took me a lot of years, but I have finally figured out three reliable patterns on river smallmouth this time of year, just before the water temps warm to the point that they start thinking seriously about spawning.  On the Meramec where I live, one pattern is almost magic most of the time in March; the fish are going to be in a certain type of location, and they will be eating.  I went out last week twice in the new boat, once for just a couple hours with Mary, who is recuperating from a hip replacement and doing very well, the other time a nearly full day trip by myself.  On the trip with Mary, I went downstream from the nearby ramp.  I first tried fishing along a rocky bank in gentle current just to see if some fish were hanging in that type of spot.  I only caught a spotted bass.  So I headed down a bit further to the first spot with the right setup for my March pattern.  Yup, fish were there.  The first one I caught was a 17.5 incher, followed by a couple smaller ones, on a crankbait.  Moved to the next pattern spot, caught several smaller ones and hooked a really big fish that came unstuck.  Tried one more spot, caught two more smallish smallmouth.  By then the sun was getting low, and Mary was ready to head for home. 

On Friday I went to a different area, planning on spending the day running from one of those pattern spots to the next.  I made sure I had a full tank of gas, because I expected to cover more than 10 miles of river.  The first stop was not a perfect setup, and I caught nothing.  Tried the nearby rock bank, nothing.  Tried my alternate type of pattern spot just below, nothing.  Skipped down to the next primary pattern spot, a perfect setup, and the fish were there.  I quickly caught a half dozen smallies, including two that I estimated at 18 inches each.  In my old boat I have a ruler glued to the forward edge of the front deck, so that I can use my trolling motor frame to put a fish's nose on like a bump board, but I haven't gotten around to adding the ruler to the new boat, and had nothing with which to measure my fish.  

I fished the long run below the pattern spot, again just checking to see if the fish were scattering.  I caught only one fish, but it was a 17 incher (I think).  A guy in a jet boat ran past me, and I heard him stop in the next pool downstream.  I knew there were none of my pattern spots in that pool.  I ran past him, and yup, he was fishing in a spot that would be great in January but was unlikely to hold fish now.  I felt a little smug, knowing something he didn't.

After that, I couldn't find any more bigger fish, but every spot I came to produced a smallmouth or two.  I had gotten on the water around 10 AM, and it was now after 3 PM, so I decided to start working my way back up; there were small places, worth only a few casts, best approached from downstream, that I wanted to fish.  Again, no big ones but most held a fish or two.  I had mostly been using the crankbait, but started trying a swim bait in some of these spots after the crankbait failed to produce, and it caught some fish.  So when I got back to where I'd caught those two 18 inchers not long after starting out, I decided to see if the swim bait would pick up a fish or two that had earlier turned down the crankbait.  

I'm glad I did that.  I caught the biggest smallmouth I've caught in a couple years.  Although I didn't have a way of measuring it, I did have a scale.  4.51 pounds--I think it was about 21 inches.  Next cast, a 3.5 pounder that I guessed at 19 inches.  A couple smaller ones.  But it was a Friday afternoon with gorgeous weather, and next thing I knew there were jet boats going by one after another, and one with a whole fam damily pulled right in front of where I was fishing, right through the middle of my pattern spot, to park on the adjacent gravel bar.  So I cranked the motor and headed for home.

Got up early Saturday morning to fish with a couple buddies for a few hours before the motorheads got on the river.  All three of us knew the pattern.  So we immediately headed for the first spot.  Nothing.  But the second spot was full of fish.  It was tough to fish due to the setup, but we all caught fish; nothing big, but up to 16 inches.  It was a bit frustrating to me because I wanted to fish the swim bait, but that morning I'd picked up the wrong rod, and didn't have a rod with me with enough backbone to set the hooks well with the big swim bait I was using.  I briefly hooked and lost a half dozen fish in that spot.

Next spot Aaron caught a gorgeous 20 incher, and Clay caught a couple.  I was still struggling.  We fished a few more spots, and caught a few more smaller fish.  We fished one spot that was slightly different, but that we knew should hold fish, and caught nothing.  Coming back down a little later, we decided to try it again; we just knew there had to be fish there.  Sure enough we caught several smaller fish.  I'd given up on the swim bait and was fishing the crankbait when I hooked a big one, which turned out to be 19 inches.  And then the boat traffic got thick and we gave it up.

Yesterday was a chore day.  And today was supposed to be so much cooler.  In a way I was glad; the hot weather had warmed water temps up into the low 60s, which was going to wreck my pattern.  But I hoped that the cool day would slow the transition down.  Plus, it gave me a chance to work on the trailer of my old boat.  I dropped off the boat in the water at my neighbor's place, and spent a few hours getting the empty trailer back in shape.  Then I grabbed my tackle; heck, the old boat was already sitting there in the river, so why not fish a couple hours before loading it back on the trailer, just to see if the pattern was still holding.  Water temp was still 59 degrees, which should be perfect.  

Ever have one of those days when things just went from annoying to worse?  Unloading the boat was the start...in pulling it over to where I wanted to park it, I stepped into a sandy mud area that was about bottomless, and sunk halfway to my knees.  Which was a bit painful as well, since I'm currently suffering from Achilles tendonitis.  Working on the trailer was a series of annoyances when things that should have been easy turned out to be more involved than I expected.  And then, as soon as I climbed into the old boat and put down the trolling motor, I dropped it right on a rock and broke off one blade of the prop.  Aargh!!!  I went ahead and fished for a bit, even though running the trolling motor was making my teeth rattle.  First spot, nothing.  Second spot, one small fish.  Third spot, nothing, fourth spot, nothing...

The fifth and final spot was the charm.  Caught a 15 incher first cast on the crankbait, and then a 19 incher (I still had the ruler on the old boat!) on the next cast.  But that was it.  Heck of a week or so of fishing, though.

Tomorrow I'm hitting a different river in the canoe instead of the jet boat.  We will see if my pattern holds true on it.

[ColdWaterFshr]

These temperature swings lately are so dramatic.  Was driving I44 home yesterday from 2 nights on the Current river and temp went from 95 to 51 just a couple hours after I got home.  Wind was so horrible my yakima rack was starting to lift off the back bar so I had to stop in Sullivan to fix it.  

Fishing wasn't great on the Current, but spent more time mid-day swimming than fishing due to the heat, it was awful.  And the recent flood and wind has changed the upper river dramatically.  Had 4 brutal hard portages above Ashley with trees so big that required complete unload of canoes.   Never have seen that on the upper.  I don't know how long it will take to get those cleared, but they are massive sycamores blocking any simple walk around passage even.  

Congrats on the nice fish!

[snagged in outlet 3]

@Al Agnew what brand and size boat is the new one?

[WestCentralFisher]

The past couple weeks fishing for me has see-sawed from amazing to terrible. On Saturday, I fished a really good little smallmouth stream in very warm weather, saw lots of fish immediately, and figured I was in business. Not so much! Most were steadfastly ignoring everything. I went through my tackle box twice over and never figured it out. I did catch 5 or 6 <12 inch smallies out of sheer grit but I never figured out anything remotely resembling a pattern. I just found the few fish that would bite on anything. 

Then yesterday, on a lightning quick after work outing in cooler weather and seemingly worse conditions on a way less productive (usually) creek it was easy fishing. I stopped after catching a half dozen in perhaps 15 minutes. This is my personal limit I've set for catch and release on this creek since I have always thought the population can't be large, and any amount of catch and release mortality could be damaging, but on this day I probably could have almost named my number. 

[Al Agnew]

On 3/24/2026 at 5:52 AM, snagged in outlet 3 said:

@Al Agnew what brand and size boat is the new one?

1756 Blazer SS, 60/40 Mercury motor.

[snagged in outlet 3]

31 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

1756 Blazer SS, 60/40 Mercury motor.

Nice!!   

[Al Agnew]

2 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Nice!!   

 

2 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Nice!!   

Yup, I really like it.  A smoother ride, and unlike my old boat, it will plane out at half throttle.  The old one wouldn't plane until about 85% throttle.  Really quick to get on plane, too.  Goes as fast as I want to go...the faster you can go, the faster you can get into trouble!