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Creek Smallmouth Bass Blitz

Just a quick post to shift gears from the panfish and largemouth gigs so far this spring. I was invited by my friend Judson to fish one of our favorite small rivers in central Maryland and had a sensational day on the water as pre-spawn smallies were active with thunderous strikes on hairjigs tipped with plastic trailers. A few fish took small crankbaits as well. Check 'em out...

My buddy Judson collared several high-quality smallies on the crank.

But most of our fish, like the one above, took a 1/16 oz hairjig with some type of plastic trailer. Here are a few of our better fish from today...

We tallied 60 smallmouths today, with many fish running from 14 to 17 inches...great sport on our ultra light gear and in the rivers' current.

Judson shows one of our many 'doubles' today.

Judsons' best bass came on the Rapala crankbait

This one ran me downstream a ways...had to follow on the light line. Yes...a great day on the water in chest waders, a handful of lures, and hard charging smallmouths. wearing us out. We took a break for some grub in Judson's cabin, made the decision to go back out and fish in the pouring rain, and ripped em up for another hour! My two largest fish on the day never made the highlight reel because I decided to leave the camera in the truck due to the heavy rain and wading conditions. Literally, my all-time top, small river smallmouth trip ever!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Sleeper on April 25, 2014 at 8:50pm

wow nice fish and pics

Permalink Reply by Allen Morgan on April 26, 2014 at 3:43pm

This forum needs a "Like" button!!!!

Excellent post Jim! Color me green with envy!

By any chance, you do have a pic of the hair jig, before it got wet? We've got Smallmouth water about 1 1/2 hours east of me, and if I get back there this year, I'd like to be ready....

Permalink Reply by Jim Gronaw on April 26, 2014 at 4:08pm

Allen...here are the jigs we used, nothing fancy, but enough to imitate a crayfish. they are tied on 1/16 oz football head jigs and cast with 6 pound limp mono on ul spinning gear. The 'sparse tie' is so that a plastic trailer, like a small plastic crayfish, can be threaded on and fished by hopping it through the current and flow, just ticking it off the bottom and keeping contact with the jig and the current. Bites came as small bumps or thunderous strikes. Often, a fish would bump your jig, you'd miss the strike, then the fish would apparently follow the jig, hitting it again with the 'second chance' resulting in a hook up. Small pieces of garlic scented plastic worms made good trailer material as well.

Permalink Reply by John Sheehan on April 27, 2014 at 6:36am

Great looking smallie jigs!

Permalink Reply by John Sheehan on April 27, 2014 at 6:36am

Fabulous fun outing !

Permalink Reply by Jim Gronaw on May 4, 2014 at 7:42pm

Fishing has slowed after 8 inches of rain gave us flood conditions and muddy water. Clearing off but still high, we managed just 5 smallmouths and 4 fallfish today. Nothing spectacular, but had to work for them as the high water has them scattered and hopefully they will get back into spawning positions and we won't have any more high water events until after they spawn. Here are a couple of todays pics...all fish on hairjigs tipped with plastics of some kind...Matt had to 'long pole' this 15 incher up over a high, steep bank for todays best bass.

Most of our fish ran 11 to 13 inches today.

I was surprised with this monster fallfish of almost 18 inches on an olive hairjig. Hopefully, the bass will be active for the next two weeks if we don't have big rains. Good luck to all!