Pacemaker Fishing Forum

With Monday being a holiday for me, hit the river for a float with a friend from work.  This is probably his 2nd year really going after smallmouth so I was hoping to continue to pass on what I've learned from time on the water with other anglers.  We did a float that George and I did in December and I wanted to try again in the warmer months.

There wouldn't be a lot of rock above water to give current breaks but a few deeper pools with rocky bottoms that I was looking forward to covering with the crankbait.  My buddy got on the board first with a nice 13" one that hit the old reliable swimbait.  I had 3 or 4 hits on the old WinCo fluke but my hookup issues continued, would feel the weight after the hit and it would pop off after a few seconds.  Shortly after his fish, picked up a couple of little guys on a small seimbait.  Little bit later in the one pool, had something with some weight grab the orange and brown crankbait.  I thought I was caught on an underwater log but felt something pulling back.  The fish got free of the log and started swimming off and then got off a few seconds later.  Didn't see it so not sure if it was a bass or catfish but it had some weight.

I picked up one more fish on the fluke and missed another 4 hits or so and that was it for me.  My buddy put on a small white whopper popper and started getting some action.  He ended up landing probably 7 or 8 on that, with the biggest going about 16 inches.

Good news is we caught some fish, saw wildlife and salvaged a bad paddle day.  That started with us getting to the start and him realizing he had forgotten his paddle at home, 35 minutes away.  I was closer than that and was going to go get my extra and realized a friend loved about 12 minutes away. Texted him and we had a caneo paddle for him to use.  Then after we were done, I was putting everything in my car back at the beginning and realized I didn't have a paddle.  So sped back to the ramp at the beginning and the paddle was still on the ground.