[jad2t]

As I'm dedicated now to learning the art of creek Smallmouth fishing I'm focusing more on numbers than size and I'm having quite a blast. Last week I did this only using trout magnets (mealworm and bison colors) and caught over 50 fish in about an hour and a half. Tonight fished about an hour and caught around 40 fish, mostly assorted panfish no bigger than 6 inches but I did manage a couple 8" Smallies and a handful of redeye bass about the same size. As I get better at finding the Smallies I'll move into creeks with deeper holes in search of larger ones.

I learned something cool tonight though. This creek is very shallow with those sheets of rock everywhere that you have to watch your step when you walk over them. As I was retrieving the TM it dropped off a "ledge" if you want to call it that and out of that sheet of rock darted a redeye bass who grabbed the magnet and went straight back into his little cave. I had to be careful that he didn't break my 2lb test from rubbing against the edge. I was surprised and as I was walking back found another ledge similar to that with a gap large enough for fish to get in and out. I literally stood right on top of the edge twitching the magnet in about a foot of water and watched redeye after redeye dart out to grab it and run back under that sheet of rock pulling drag. I caught them one after the other. Again, no size to speak of but lots of numbers and I'm having a blast.

With the numbers I'm catching, this would be a fantastic way to get kids into fishing so if anyone is trying to do that, get some trout magnets and wade a small stream, they're all over!