Smallmouth bass hit the beds big time on Friday. Joey Dougherty and his friend and mentor John Peterson from Northland Fishing Tackle fished smallies on Friday. The day before John and his brother Duane caught a large number of smallmouth in 5-10 feet of water just off spawning areas.
We had a crazy week of weather last week. Sunday was driving cold rain with strong easterly winds, Monday and Tuesday was cold and windy. The fronts passed and in came high blue skies with little wind and warming temperatures, throw in a full moon and you have a great recipe to start the smallmouth spawning period. Amazing what a difference one day makes.
Joe and John used Nortland Fishing Tackles 1/8 oz. Bug-A-Boo jigs in olive, crawfish and black colors. Casting the jigs into the spawning areas with a slow steady retrieve was the ticket. Smallies cannot stand anything near their nests. The jigs imitate crayfish, a favorite food and enemy of bass eggs. John and Joe saw as many as five bass around one spawning bed.