Yesterday a friend of mine, Clay and his dad went out to Priest for some smallmouth action and whatever would bite.
We started out in Hamilton creek on a favorite bank of mine. We started off throwing jigs, shakey heads and swimming grubs.  Clay started whacking them on a green pumpkin grub just by swimming it slowly and just off the bottom.  We fished down the back and he caught a nice largemouth that was around 5lbs.  Thing I noticed was this fished had spawned out already, tail beat up and red, stomach just sucked in and flat as could be. I was kinda shocked but not really. We had a good warming trend a few weeks back that pushed the water into the low 60's. Also on this lake they have been known to spawn at 55 degree water. 

We continued to fish around Hamilton creek and catching a bunch of fish.  I picked up a black Secret Lures jig and flipped up by a rock and caught a toad of a KY Spotted Bass, this thing was little over 19" long and fat as could be.  I converted the weight from my length chart and it should have weighed around 4.04 lbs.  That is a nice spot for this lake and just 1lb short of the lake record.
I caught her using a Challenger Rod that I just picked up and 12 lb floro.

Fishing slowed a bit in Hamilton so we headed out to a few more smallie spots.  We fished around bear island some and picked up a few more 16" keeper largemouths on the grub and jig.  We went into Smith Springs area and continued our jig approach.  I broke off on a good fish in 12ft of water and lost another good bite.  I then made a long cast and working my jig back got a tick on my bait. I set the hook and the fight was one. I knew instantly it was a big fish.  Once she came up near the boat it was a big smallie we were looking for. She jumped and tail walked a couple times, it was great.  Finally got her in the net and wow!  First thing I noticed was how fat she was and she had a 6" or bigger little stripe in her mouth!  These big smallies will each big baits too! We measured her at 21.75" long which converts to 6.17 lbs but she was full of eggs so I bet she would have gone a bit more in weight. 

It was getting late in the day so we needed to get some pics of our catches.  Our best 5 would have gone over 20 lbs for the day. Awesome for Priest.  We had 6 lbs smallie, 5lb largemouth, 4lb spot, 3 lb largemouth and another 3lb largemouth. We hit for the cycle! All three bass and keepers.  It was a fun day as we caught over 35-40 bass for the day.




Thanks to Challenger Rods and Secret Lures for these nice fish today