Great job! Im still a month out on my trip to PIB. My plans were to spend as much time as possible on the main lake anyway. If its starting up early in the bay, im guessing main lake is where ill need to be anyway. Caught some nice fish in NC over the weekend. Can`t wait to go North.
 

I'm curious about something, does anyone here ever troll for Smallies? I do catch a couple per year on tubes but I theorize I could probably catch more if I covered a lot of water presenting say, 4 baits, consisting of Crankbaits and maybe even near-surface spinnerbaits. I've done research in to this before and there's simply not much info on trolling for the Black Bass. What I have gathered though is that 1.5-2.2 mph is the speed to be going and that I should use leaders of lighter fluoro from my heavier main line I use for bigger fish (20# mono, 27# leadcore, 30# braid, etc).

Divemaster
I'm curious about something, does anyone here ever troll for Smallies? I do catch a couple per year on tubes but I theorize I could probably catch more if I covered a lot of water presenting say, 4 baits, consisting of Crankbaits and maybe even near-surface spinnerbaits. I've done research in to this before and there's simply not much info on trolling for the Black Bass. What I have gathered though is that 1.5-2.2 mph is the speed to be going and that I should use leaders of lighter fluoro from my heavier main line I use for bigger fish (20# mono, 27# leadcore, 30# braid, etc).

It's been about 10 years since I've done it but usually drifting and either dragging tubes or silver blade baits caught more fish than trolling. Either way could easily get 20+ fish in a morning either way.  My biggest smallie was got just before dark trolling for eyes on a 7-9" rapala floater in trout color in about 10-15 feet of water near Walnut. It weighed 6-10 on a rapala scale (sure it was off) but definitely a beast no matter the actual weight.
  Usually we trolled in 10-25 ft of water with bagley's or smithwicks.

dipNrip

Divemaster
I'm curious about something, does anyone here ever troll for Smallies? I do catch a couple per year on tubes but I theorize I could probably catch more if I covered a lot of water presenting say, 4 baits, consisting of Crankbaits and maybe even near-surface spinnerbaits. I've done research in to this before and there's simply not much info on trolling for the Black Bass. What I have gathered though is that 1.5-2.2 mph is the speed to be going and that I should use leaders of lighter fluoro from my heavier main line I use for bigger fish (20# mono, 27# leadcore, 30# braid, etc).

It's been about 10 years since I've done it but usually drifting and either dragging tubes or silver blade baits caught more fish than trolling. Either way could easily get 20+ fish in a morning either way.  My biggest smallie was got just before dark trolling for eyes on a 7-9" rapala floater in trout color in about 10-15 feet of water near Walnut. It weighed 6-10 on a rapala scale (sure it was off) but definitely a beast no matter the actual weight.  Usually we trolled in 10-25 ft of water with bagley's or smithwicks.

Thanks for the tips. About how fast were you drifting? I was thinking we could just use our trolling motor to do a controlled drift.

FishinGuy

Divemaster
I'm curious about something, does anyone here ever troll for Smallies? I do catch a couple per year on tubes but I theorize I could probably catch more if I covered a lot of water presenting say, 4 baits, consisting of Crankbaits and maybe even near-surface spinnerbaits. I've done research in to this before and there's simply not much info on trolling for the Black Bass. What I have gathered though is that 1.5-2.2 mph is the speed to be going and that I should use leaders of lighter fluoro from my heavier main line I use for bigger fish (20# mono, 27# leadcore, 30# braid, etc).

yes, fat bodied deep diving cranks work well trolled. Not sure of exact speed. Vary it a bit. Probably depends on the conditions. Boated over 30 fish trolling one day, with the smallest being 17".

Wow, that's a pretty good haul! I'll try a few different speeds like you suggested, somewhere in the 1.5-2.4 mph neighborhood. Mind if I ask around how deep you caught most of them? I'll see what Crankbaits I can tear out of my basement as most of my plugs I use on the big pond are stickbaits, I'm pretty sure I have a few old Rebel Double Deeps sitting around somewhere though. I do have a DT-10 in the boat, so I'll definitely stick that on one of the rods. If I do wind up trolling for them this weekend (which, as of now, the predicted wind is making me think we'll be in the bay all weekend) I'll be using a 4 rod spread, all flatlines.

Anybody tried recently? Thinking about another trip next weekend. 

My dad and sister have my boat up there now... I'll give a report back

Nice fish! Was the bay still pretty crowded? I will be up Saturday. Cant wait. 

KHNC
Nice fish! Was the bay still pretty crowded? I will be up Saturday. Cant wait. 

Saturday was much more crowded than Sunday, much of the crowd was off the monument. Unfortunately I hear were into the waning stages of the smallmouth run, but there are still fish to be caught. 

Thanks! I plan to concentrate more in the main lake anyway. I have been doing lots of research on areas east of the bay. Im sure the wind will force me into the bay a day or two tho. Getting in about 4 tomorrow. Prob try mouth of elk creek in the evening.