Big Time Small Mouth

Had a great opportunity to get my smallmouth bass game dialed in recently. Was invited to float a mid-Michigan river that's been producing epic levels of fish lately. Don't have to ask me twice!

Original plan had been to fish topwater with poppers. But we also were prepared with streamers, and friend Jay wanted to have a shot at carp, if we saw them. During the first ten minutes of the float, we quickly discovered that Murdich Minnow streamers were the hot ticket as Jay outfished me about 10 to 1! So, I quickly switched over to the streamer program.

This is super-cool sight fishing, especially in the low, clear water conditions we experienced. Just like trout, you could easily watch predator chase down the prey. Well, most times...

I got warmed-up on some dinks -- in the 6-8" range. Pretty quickly we were shaking off the little guys to pursue the river donkeys. By early afternoon, I had my personal best 18.5" fish. Came out of the edge of a weed line to SMACK the streamer. I love that smallmouth fight -- even the little ones are fun. But the big ones like this can get you bent on a 7-weight steelhead rod!

Just the sheer numbers we stuck that day were a huge help in building confident and experience. I quickly got better at hooksets and fighting fish. Between three of us we likely boated at least 75 fish and shook of maybe that many little guys. A few other highlights of the day:

• Spent a good part of the day casting a Scott S4S (hey, it was already rigged and ready). Wow - there's a reason they're $700. What a rocket!
• Mid-afternoon I cut the popper off and fished my Scott A4 907/4. While not the S4S, this new rod did not disappoint. And, I got a couple of nice fish.
• Made my drift boat rowing deubt! My friends say, "If you can't row, you can't go" so time to man up and learn. Did very well at managing speed, putting us in the right places. Even managed to back-row up to retrieve a streamer from a tree!
• Murdich Minnow was MONEY, time and again. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it held up, too.
• Having a great new waterproof camera is excellent. Unless it's bured in the backpack at the other end of the boat when you land your personal record fish...

Many thanks to Brian and Jay for inviting me along on their float. I look forward to the opportunity to do it again.

-Sean-