Smith Mtn Lake

[bill1wts]

Heading to Smith Mtn to spend Thurs to Sun there with the Bassmaster Elite guys. Any sugesstions for fishing this lake. We have never been there. I will do most of my fishing from sun up till the tourny starts and then from tourny end till I fall asleep. I do have the advantage of sleeping on the boat - so I can stay where I want to fish 1st thing in the am. Anyone been there before? Any tips would be great.

[gman]

I have not been there, but it's on my places to get to list - I'll be real interested in your report along with any other that the members post. Good luck down there...

[lunker934]

I havent fished there in years - so I am no help

[bill1wts]

1st tip - don't go to a lake with 107 professional fisherman. No really that was not much of an issue - they didn't have much better luck than we did. Went down Thurs the 7th got on water about 4:30 - 5:00pm. Water temp was high 70's low 80's the whole time. My son caught a 17" LM 1/2 hr after we started fishing - I thought man this is going to be great - caught on a crank in about 20' water. After that all we caught were dinks till the last morning. At Sat's weight in 1 of the pros said they were using a popr but were throwing it in 20 to 30' of water off the main lake points. I did that Sunday am and caught a 18" SM and a 17" LM and a 15' LM. We did catch a bunch of Sm throwing popr's and cranks to rock piles. This took me back to the days of fishing lake ontario as a kid - same deal.

The water is very clear some places you can see 15 to 20 deep. You can see huge LM but they won't bite anything. Big fish and small will chase senkos, crank, popr's and grubs off the shore and out from the docks but they look at it and turn around. I threw everything I own. Listening to the pros at the weigh in they had the same problems. The lake has a decent chop 24/7 again this reminds me of ontario. even at 5:00 am it has a chop and when the Sat and Sun crowd shows up it is worse than Anna.

We had Arron Martins, Eddie Evers, Brian Snowden and 1 other pro staying at our campground. None made it to the last day. Their advice was to keep chucking and cover as much ground as possible. Friday we did get to see Mike Ike hook up, big fish, get it stuck in a tree throw a tantrum then get it out and throw a party. Pretty funny. Which was just luck to even come across Ike fishing on that big of a lake and even luckier to witness what we did. We have a bunch of video but I am not sure if I can get it here for you. I will try later. The weigh ins were awesome and you could learn from what the pros would say.

OK now for the good part - Friday evening after the weigh in we were out riding around - went down to check out the dam. Nobody around - all of a sudden the water starts boiling. I had seen it on TV but never in person - striper were just tearing up shad all around us. we used the trolling motor to chase them around and threw whatever we had rigged at the time - grubs, spook, spinner. They would kill anything. At one time they had all four of us broke off. We would retie and start chucking again. Amazing - most heart pumping rush I have ever had fishing. I managed to land 6, Amy got 1 kids never landed one but fought a few. We were not prepared for this - we had 8 and 10 lb mono and even with loose drag they would bust you off. The ones we landed were 6 to 8 lbs - awesome time. Ate 2 for supper that night. We looked for them Sat night but the locals told us that we were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Weird thing was there were no birds around like at Anna.

I will go back again - would like to try some fall and spring fishing there. From what I read at the lake the first cpl weeks of June is about the worse fishing they have. Enjoy some of the pics from the digi. I will see what I can do with the video.

Caught on POP'R in 30'

Caught on POP'R in 20'

One of the stripers - dam in background

My wife with her striper

Mike Ike at the weigh in Sat.

Sunday Dean Rojas cruised into a cove where we were having lunch - said he had three in the boat - that is what he finished the final day with. Pretty neat to see - they have backlashing, throw it into the trees and everything else we do. He was throwing a twin tailed grub weightless.

[gman]

Great report Bill - Sounds like you and the family had a good time. Maybe I'll take a trip down there around Columbus Day weekend in October...