New Hampshire Fishing Report

New Hampshire Smallmouth

This weekend I had the chance to head up to a lake in New Hampshire and do some bed fishing for smallmouth with a couple of the guys from my club. The guy hosting the trip had really talked up the place, talking about the fish averaging 2lbs and being everywhere, so we were all hyped to go. The weather was great all day, mid 70s with some light clouds and a little bit of wind. Water temps were in the high 50s, and the smallies were in the beginning of the spawn. We ended up spending most of the day bed fishing smallies, with a short and unproductive try at some largemouth in the middle of the day. When we first got to the spot, we ran into a buddy of the host and the original source of the honey hole. He said the spawn was just picking up but that we were perhaps a week early for the really good stuff. If what went down isn't the good stuff, then I'm not sure I could really handle it. We ended up catching fish after fish off beds in 2-12 feet of water. I fished a few different setups: A texas-rigged pearl Damiki Hydra (nice bait, but way too fragile. I broke several on missed hooksets.), a white ice zoom tube (all out of plain white), and a dropshot rigged white super fluke jr. The dropshot rig really worked out, put a large-ish weight 3-6 inches below a EWG work hook and tex-pose the fluke on there. It becomes a lot easier to keep the fluke in the bed while still being able to give it some action. The fishing was, for lack of a better word, freaking amazing. All of us pulled in fish after fish, and the advertised size was not an empty promise. I ended up landing over 30 smallies ranging from a 14 inch "dink" to a 3lb 6oz personal best, with the average fish being around 2 lbs. All the fish were plumb and healthy-looking. I probably ended up with 4-5 fish at 3lbs or better, and lost one that looked to be a little better than the largest one. But you know you've had an amazing day when you can lose a fish like that and still laugh about it! If you get the chance, I highly recommend heading up north for some smallie bed fishing. The spots can be tricky to find, but if you hit it just right you're in for an incredible day of fishing

• Added By: michaelk on 05/23/10 02:12 PM
• Location: New Hampshire
• Report Date: 5/22/2010
• # of Hotspots: 1
• # of Photos: 6
• # of Fish Caught: 30
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