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Just wondering how everyone else is doing fishing for Smallies on Dale? The last year for me has been a major change from 3 or 4 years ago. Mostly all I seem to be catching in size is in the 1 1/2 to 2 pound or smaller fish. So on a scale of 1-10 as of now I give it a 2. Anybody else doing any better or worst?????????
personally ive never ranked dale hollow over cumberland , but thats just me, and thats because i dont fish dale hollow that much anymore, and im pretty prejudice when it comes to cland. however , i do have 2 close friends that never fish c-land but fish dale hollow 3+ times a week. they both said this was the 2nd best year they have had in over 30 yrs fishing the lake. the surprise in this (for most people, including me) is they werent talking about smallmouth, they have absolutely clobbered the lm over 7lbs since february. in june they had several nights that their 5 best were 25+. ive seen the pics, lol they were either at night or the pic was taken at an angle where you couldnt even come close to guessing where they were fishing, and i dont ask. but the pics this year have been plentiful and there were alot of pigs.
I only fish in the winter for smallies but this past winter was the worst ive ever experienced. Our typical days in years past were 30+ with atleast one and sometimes 3 or 4 overs. This winter we didnt catch a single over and most days we had 10 fish or less. All the guys i know that winter fish it had the same results. Stuck several good largemouth as we always have but the smallies seemed to disappear. Hope its just going through a down cycle and theres not a bigger problem
steven thats about word for word what my buddies have said. They never though they would be making several trips a week to dale to fish exclusively for LMs, but said the SM fishing just wasnt worth the time.
I think I am going to join you Stripernut1 for a while. I used to fish Cland years ago until just about the time they lowered the lake but since they are starting to raise it I think I might start fishing it again for awhile. I love fishing Dale hollow and love the lake but my confidence is pretty low in it right now. But I am not giving up on Dale altogether I still plan to hit it time to time. I have talked with other good fishermen and they are reporting that it is not the lake it used to be. Glad to hear that someone is still catching size and quality cause I was starting to think like the post from "Fishin is Life", that the lake has some kind of a problem. Thanks for the report, it is always good to here the good things.