Smallmouth Bass

Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation

Smallmouth bass are a popular gamefish which are typically brownish or greenish in color with dark colored bands that run from the top of the fish to the belly along both sides.  The smallmouth bass has an upper jaw that reaches back to just below the middle of its eyes red colored eyes.

Smallmouth bass thrive in streams, rivers and other bodies of water that are relatively clear.  They prefer to hang out around cover areas such as sunken trees and brush as well as large rocks. 

As with largemouth bass, smallmouth bass will eat just about anything they can get in their mouths including other gamefish, minnows/shiners, crawdads, frogs, snakes and water dwelling insects.

Smallmouth bass will bite on an array of artificial lures including plastic grubs and worms, topwater lures, jigs, spoons, spinnerbaits, plastic tube baits and buzz baits. While spawning these fish will attack nearly anything you flash in front of them in an effort to protect their nesting areas.

One of the biggest reasons for their popularity is the fact that the smallmouth bass will put up a tremendous fight making them extremely fun to catch.

- Any day in the outdoors is a good day

Fishing Journal Entry 5

5/5/2016

Today I went fishing with my dad and my son Dakota.  I took them to one of my favorite fishing holes and we had a blast.  The fish were biting a bit on the slow side, but we managed to catch a few.

The temperature was 72 degrees with a clear skies and wind blowing out of the north at 9 miles per hour.  The barometric pressure was 30.01 and dropped to 30.00 before making a u-turn and rising to 30.10.

The water was quite muddy but seems to be clearing up a little bit.  Unfortunately there is more rain in the forecast which will dirty it up even more.

After fishing for about three hours the fish count was three and a half for dad (One didn't quite make it to shore, but we got a good look at it.  It was a bit bigger than the one in his picture.)   He caught one bass, one crappie and two channel catfish.  I caught two bass and one crappie.  Cody caught one bluegill.

Together we caught a total of seven fish using minnows, with several more bites we didn't manage to bring to shore....(We won't include dad's half fish in the count, but don't tell him.)

-Any day in the outdoors is a good day