First smallie of the year

[JustinM]

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...d/d7dec101.jpg

Forgot to post this. First smallie of the year. It's from our guntersville trip. It just might be a world record! And yes that is a small mouth.

[avidbasser]

Man, I hope that you didn't peirce it too bad. That would be one less smallie in the water.

[JustinM]

Barely got the skin on the back. He'll live.

[ElectricSLT]

Barely got the skin on the back. He'll live.

But he wasn't a bit scared of that crankbait!

[shane2480]

Not trying to be a nay sayer but that looks alot like a bluegill. Mouth position is not right for a smallie. Still a helluva comparison to the bait that it went after. Did you guys catch any good fish on your trip? i just talked to a guy i work with and he had a club tourny there last weekend and said it sucked.

[JustinM]

I thought it was a gill too, but the lines were all wrong. It was a smallie for sure. We had a hair under 20# on the first day. 13 keepers. Secondday only 3 keepers maybe 7-8 pounds. Not a lot of fish but good size. From everyone we talked to they said the winter was to bad and killed off to much grass this spring. We were about 2 weeks to early is my guess. But from what I've gathered it wasn't any better around here. Hopefully bluegrass will start to fire up! Much easier driving 5 minutes instead of 2 hours to Kentucky or newton for a quick trip.

[lroberts]

Not to sound trite.......but you would catch more fish on that lipless crank if you quit using that snap!!!! Sure, its easy to change baits.....But it puts way too much out there for fish to see!

[JustinM]

Yeap. Got lazy the last day trying so many things.

[idbefishing]

That ain't a smallie! That's a Berkley Frenzy trap hooked to a Red Eye Shad.

[lroberts]

Yeap. Got lazy the last day trying so many things.

I hear ya.....have done it myself. Do you use flouro with lipless cranks???

[JustinM]

Usually. But with us expecting so much grass that wasn't around I switched to crystal invis for the trip. Most of my reels have flouro on but top water. Oh and don't buy berkley flouro for winter time fishing! I switched out two reels to it because of the good reviews. I snapped off 4 baits on a newton trip cause it got cold and stiffened up.

[lroberts]

Usually. But with us expecting so much grass that wasn't around I switched to crystal invis for the trip. Most of my reels have flouro on but top water. Oh and don't buy berkley flouro for winter time fishing! I switched out two reels to it because of the good reviews. I snapped off 4 baits on a newton trip cause it got cold and stiffened up.

I have Berkley flouro on one spinning rod....the rest have BPS flouro. I have had good luck with it......and its a little cheaper. I really like using 14 lb. flouro on a crankbait rod for lipless cranks.