Middle TN Streams
Went out yesterday from 3:00 until dark and waded a couple middle TN streams. Typically I catch 4 or 5 redeye for every Smallie, and this time it was ALL brown fish. They were all clones of each other, about a foot long, but healthy. The only pattern I could put together was fish were relating to shoals that dropped off into deeper water. Bounced the bait off of the shoal into deeper water and BAM.All fish caught on soft plastics, tubes, craws in natural colors with 1/8 or 1/4 jighead fished slow. Watermelon/Green with red fleck was the ticket. It's still a little too cold for the smallmouth to do a "Free Willy" and toss the hook, so now is the time if you want a better chance at that trophy.
I'm normally a spring and summer fisherman, but does anyone have any information on Smallmouth spawn and some early season patterns? The deep and slow holes weren't really producing, and it seemed a little early for the fish to be relating to deeper runs with moderate current. Hope everyone gets on some fish this weekend!
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