Smallmouth in the Piedmont ... who knew? Well, I didn't!

In my bio I mentioned that I got started fishing from a canoe with my dad on the James river in Virginia going after smallmouth. After moving back to NC a few years ago, I discovered a few great fishing websites that have helped me find new places to fish and some great people to enjoy those experiences with right here in my home state. They are as follows:

http://www.ncangler.com/

http://www.riverbassin.com/

In addition, I got a great book for Christmas a few years back - http://www.pocosinpress.com/

Paul Ferguson's book, Paddling Eastern North Carolina, has great information for canoeist, including: launch access, trip lengths, rapids, cautions, and points of interest & scenery. It's a great resource for canoeing any NC basin from the Yadkin east.

These resources have allowed me to discover some great rivers that I've never fished before, some of which are within 1 hr drive from my house in Raleigh. The most surprising was that I could get to smallmouth bass waters within 2 hrs from Raleigh. In fact, there are multiple places to fish for smallmouth within that range. No more long trips to Virginia and buying another fishing license just to find some smallmouth!

Last year I visited a few of these rivers and ended up landing 3 smallies around 17". I'd never caught any smallie over ~2lbs up until last year and to get 3 approaching 3lbs each in one year was pretty awesome, at least for me. Although one of these fish was caught in the Potomac basin while visiting the inlaws, my "luck" with big smallies has greatly improved. For trips I made in NC, not only did I catch many smallies (including 2 great fish), but I lost 3 others that were easily my best smallmouth ever.

First smallie trip was in late June and I landed this 17" smallie on a t-rigged purple Yum grub. This was the first time I fished this river and altough I had heard smallies were in this area, I was shocked that was able to catch one this big on my first trip. It was 100 deg F that day and all of the fish caught were hanging in the shade next to current breaks, including this guy. The photo below was on a solo float in mid September on the Monocacy river in Maryland. This is a relatively small river, and again, I was shocked to catch a smallie of this size. I landed this one on a rebel craw crankbait. I had just tied it on and tossed it out to test the settings on my baitcaster. As soon as I began to reel it got slammed! The photo below is from a late September trip I took with a colleague. We actually floated two sections of the same river over two days and camped at a state park. By day two we had figured out a pattern with relatively dull colored spinnerbaits and I landed this fat 17" smallie on a yellow & blue mini strike king spinnerbait. It was tied to my ultralight with 4 lb line! My colleague brought a similar sized smallie to the boat on the same lure shortly after and it got off before we could get it in the boat for a photo. On this same trip I missed a very large smallie (est @ 5lbs) and landed the 16" spotted bass pictured below.

All in all, I had a great year for smallmouth and am now convinced the smallmouth fishing in NC is just as good, if not better, than any trip I've taken in Virginia. In 2011, I hope to get out and land a few more of these scrappy river bronzebacks.