Story of Three 5lb Smallmouth

These past three trips have been great. I have caught a five plus pound smallmouth on each of them and it makes me realize how lucky I am to live in the Northwest. Each of them were a little different and all very fun! Here is how I caught each and what rod, reel and line did the trick.

Long Lake - 5.03lbs

I caught this one last Wednesday while "video game fishing". I saw a big arch in 28 feet of water and dropped it straight down and watched my drop-shot fall on the Lowrance. It bit immediately and I pulled it up pretty easily. I didn't think it was that big until I saw it. It made a few runs and then it tried to jump under the boat and smacked into the boat. After that it went nuts and dove down several times. I was using the new Seaguar Finesse Fluorocarbon in the 5.2-pound size. It held up fine and was a blast battling the fish on such light line.

Rod: Phenix MBX Classic Spin Rod 7' Light
Reel: Pflueger Patriarch XT Spinning Reel (Size 30)
Line: 5.2lb Seaguar Finesse Fluorocarbon
Bait: 3.5" Reins Bubbling Shaker Green Pumpkin
Hook: Gamakatsu Drop/Split Shot Hook Size 1
Weight: 3/16 oz. hand poured cylinder weight with Do-It Mold

Lake Coeur d'Alene - 5.12lbs

I made it out to prefish CDA one day and it was brutally cold. I only had a few hours and really didn't want to run around much. I located a hump on my Navionics+ Regions card and decided to give it a shot. With my depth highlighting set to show 20-40 feet only it was very easy to see the hump. I lined up, made a cast and the fight was on. This fish was short, fat and mean!

Rod: Phenix MBX Classic Spin Rod 7' Light
Reel: Pflueger Patriarch XT Spinning Reel (Size 30)
Line: 5.2lb Seaguar Finesse Fluorocarbon
Bait: Yum Warning Shot - Ghost Shad
Hook: Gamakatsu Drop/Split Shot Hook Size 1
Weight: 3/16 oz. hand poured cylinder weight with Do-It Mold

Lake Coeur d'Alene - 5.60lbs

This one was my favorite of them all. It was the biggest and also came when it counted, in the last half hour of our tournament. My partner had an idea to try a hump for the end of the day and it worked out. My first cast there I caught this fat smallmouth. I also caught two more before we had to go back. The key was fishing the swimbait very, very slow. Its hard for me to fish that slow but that's how they wanted it.

Rod: Phenix M1, 7'2" Heavy
Reel: Team Lew's Custom Pro Speed Spool SLP Casting Reel
Line: 15lb Seaguar Tatsu
Bait: Keitech 4.8 Swing Impact FAT - Gold Flash Bluegill
Jighead: 1/2 oz. Revenge Swimbait Hedz