Video: Eric Atkins and his buddy took a trip to catch some spawning smallmouth.
"Evan Howard, Corey Galloway, and I made this trip in early 2016. We were trying to time the weather and the smallmouth spawn and I don't think we ended up timing either of those right. It was colder than normal and windy on this trip. The trip got started with me missing a 5-pound smallmouth on a top water lure. How do I know it was 5-pounds? Because a bank fisherman threw a small jig right behind me, somehow fought it on his ultralight rod, and proceeded to throw the trophy fish into cooler once he landed the fish on the rocks. We tried to shame him into throwing the fish back into the water to no avail. Each of us, even the bank fisherman, ended up catching nice smallmouth on this trip. And it has us itching to go back in a few months. Perhaps we will be there at a time when the smallmouth are feeding up."