WI_Angler1989

Ooooohhhh..... now I get it. You just have soft ice!

Hi All, So I have always had a little trouble finding Smallmouth in my river when the water is still cold. Mainly in the early spring. I know the obvios locations to start: Slow water, deeper water, "winter holes", etc. Oddly enough, it really seems like there aren't any of those types of spots in miles and miles of river. At least not on a scale more than small laydown eddies or single rock eddies. All the usual current breaks that I fish with success are either shallow, or tend to be flooded out early on. My question is where else would you guys be looking? I have a distinct disadvantage of not having a boat or kayak to help me get to and those good isolated pools unfortunately. I do have an Old Town canoe, but alone on the river in high water... not as safe.

What's that shiny, greenish stuff towards the bottom of the first picture?! I.... I'm not familiar with it....

I don't know how much she weighed, but it was a Smallie around 21" based on a rough measuring. Caught on a 2.5" Cabin Creek Tube on a Cadman's Smallie Crawlin jig. Seems like my beat fish ALWAYS come on that presentation.

My favorites are the 1/4 War Eagle Finesse spinnerbait and Mepps Aglias. The Mepps are inline spinners, so I'm not sure if that's something you're interested in. As for colors of W. E. Finesse, I've had a lot of success on a variety: sexy shad, mouse, gold shiner, coleslaw, and a chartreuse I can't remember the name of.

I've caught a lot of Smallmouth on the KVD 1.0 and 1.5. The last couple of years I've been throwing both the Spro Fat John 60 and it's smaller 50 counterpart with great success. Both of them run fairly shallow, with the 50 being 0-2'. Unfortunately I fish rivers mainly, so I can't vouch for them on lakes, but they've come through cover great for me, have killer action and hit the bass

They're my favorite too! I fish them as swim jig trailers almost exclusively. Mostly it's because they work and I haven't found a paddle tail swimbait for smallies that I prefer yet. Yeah, it's nice having the 3, 4 and 5 inch sizes. I'd fish the 4" only if the watermelon red and chartreuse pearl came in the 4". Nice! I had some good success on the Perch 90 last year, but I didn't fish it a ton. Still did well whenever I used it! I'm hoping to use them a bit more next year. I'm super excited to fish the Sooner color.

I picked up the last Whopper Plopper 90 in the clear chartreuse Sooner color from Scheels today. I think it'll work really well on the Smallies on the rivers on those cloudy or choppy days when the Perch color isnt producing. I also grabbed a few packs of Kalin's Spot Stalker jigs for grub fishing. Gonna try 1/16 oz out. Last year the 1/8 oz worked great, but occasionally I couldn't keep it up off of the bottom in the faster currents.

They can definitely take a beating! Super durable bill and finish on them. I really like the smaller 50 size and have had crazy days on smallies and pike with them!

I've been wanting to partake in the Wisconsin Master Angler program for the last few years, but never remember during the season. So I'd also like to finally do that for Live Release Smallmouth. No real reason why, but it just seems like It'd be fun and kind of neat to get the DNR certificate and patch. The going size now is 20", so it won't be a shoe-in like when it was "just" a little 18" fish hahaha.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I've had some really good luck with Spro Fat Johns in the big and small sizes. The Fat John runs 2-4 (I think) and the Baby say 0-2 roughly. They've run really well in the fast, shallow and rocky rivers I fish. Never got snagged more than I could get off of from shore even. It took a big ole Pike to finally lose my Fat John 60.

Nice fish! I was debating going out and fishing a few days back when we had some consecutive warmer (35 degree) and sun. Didn't happen... all the slow water and eddies were still frozen over on the river. That's saying something too because the Chippewa here in Eau Claire doesn't freeze easily. I guess averaging -12, WITHOUT wind chill, for a few weeks will do that.

Awesome, thanks Mike! I didn't have anything crazy in mind, just some added chartreuse to the Blue Craw and PBJ skirting on my Sniper jigs. Kind of like how the new Trotter's craw is done.

I've had really good experiences with Pflueger and Shimano reels. I currently use Shimano mostly, but still have a couple Presidents in use.

Some guys have their own custom jig colors?! They must be buying in em up in BULK! Still, I like the sound of Nik's Craw...

Sounds good! There are so many colors they tie that look awesome. I may have to branch out a bit more than usual on my next order.

That's one of the new ones, right RW?

For some reason that Sooner colored plopper calls to me. Hopefully the smallies feel the same way!

Thanks for the input, Blue. Do you ever throw chartreuse topwater? I know that some have a highlight of chartreuse on them, but I saw the whopper plopper sooner color was one you referenced in a previous thread. Smallies notoriously like chartreuse, depite my best efforts!

I fosh pretty clear waters up here so natural crawfish based colors work best for me. So, greens and browns. I have a fondness for blue in my jigs and bottom contact plastics, so blue craw is a confidence color for me. A lot of other green pumpkins with different color accents work well. I've had lots of success with PB&J too.

i guess it'll just be a trial and error thing next season. I found a company on this thread that seems to be the perfect choice for how and where I fish.

I'll have to try a jointed jerkbait from River Rock next ti me I place an order. I love their tubes and Smallie finesse worms already. It seems like most people opt for a white color and some variety of it for fluke style sold jerkbait. Any particular reason to use whites over greens? I ask because my waters have an abundance of perch, so green is always an obvious color for me.

I love Sublime Super Sniper. I use 10# test as leaders for my tubes, finesse jigs, craws and Smallie Slidin' jig presentations. Mind you, I've only ever used a few different fluoros, but the Sniper seems to have excellent abrasion resistance in Rocky waters, great sensitivity and knot strength.

Perch is a great color for me too. I fish really clear river for smallies and there are perch all over the place. Seemed a logical color choice.

Interesting. I've seen that rigging mentioned before but have never used it. Do you have any issues with losing more baits that way, seeing as the hook is so much further to one end? I can get a little bit trigger happy and may have issues not letting them take it all the way in.