An almost trophy, plus topwater

A trophy size for this
river -- 14-1/2 inches.

I fished a couple times over the weekend on a local river.  On Friday, I didn't catch a thing.  Using Ned Rigs, a jerkbait and a couple small spinnerbaits, I had a few follows and a couple nibbles.

Since water temp was 60 degrees, I tried a Heddon Zara Puppy, but only had a few sunfish slurps at the lure, probably from panfish.

Yesterday, I went to the same river but in a different section.  I didn't bring along any swimbaits on Friday, but this time, I packed some Reaction Innovations Little Dippers.  And of course since there was interest in topwater the other day, I decided to use the Zara Puppy as well.

After an hour, I just had one smallmouth bite off the tail of a Little Dipper.  There were also some sunfish follows, but nothing else until I managed a dink smallmouth on the swimbait.  Moving to another area, on the first cast with the swimbait, a smallmouth came from the depths (three feet!) and hit the lure but didn't get hooked.  I cast back with the Zara Puppy and didn't get any reaction.

After a few fruitless casts, I went back to the rod with the Little Dipper, and again a smallmouth came from the shadowy depths and hit the lure, but this one stayed on the hook.  Lifted it out of the water, and it was a really nice smallmouth for this river.  I guessed it was in the 13-14 range but didn't have a tape measure with me, so I just noted the length using the end of my fishing rod as reference.  Measuring the rod when I got home, the fish was about 14-1/2 inches, which is really good size for this river.  I've caught one 16-inch fish and a few 15 inchers prior to this.

I've noticed a ton of downed trees this year.

At another spot later, I managed to catch a smallmouth on the Zara Puppy, but it was a dink.  Still, it's great to see topwaters starting to get the fish's attention.  Last year, I didn't try topwater lures until late May and didn't catch a smallmouth bass on one until the following month.