Bronzebacks plus. It's ON baby!

[Pete Stoltman]

This weekend treated most everyone pretty well. Crappies in shallow and cooperating. Sounds like walleye guys did ok too and in my opinion the second most excititng day of the year (first is opening day of Musky season), the smallmouth bass are hitting well. Water temps on clear water lakes hitting 62-63 and bass are on beds. If you are not an accomplished bass fisherman this is the "Easy" button of bass fishing. Big fish are plentiful, easy to find, and they will bite anything that intrudes on their spawning beds. When this happens I find using a tube jig with some 10lb test on a medium heavy fast action spinning rig is just the ticket. Even though it is no longer required I would encourage anyone using this method during the spawning period to pinch down the barbs on your hooks. These fish hit very aggressively and sometimes get those jigs pretty far down their throat. If this happens it can be tough to remove the hook without damaging the fish. Since bass is still catch and release it's for the best to make it easy on both you and the fish to get the hook out as quickly as possible. If you lose one, no big deal, come back to him 5 minutes later and he'll hit again.
Here are a few photos from a quick outing this afternoon. Largest fish was just over 20" and the average was 17"-18". That's some FUN fishing.