Monthly Archives: April 2014

My Point of View: Pickwick Lake Smallmouth and Meat Hunters

Yesterday on world famous Pickwick Lake I witnessed a problem and on the last couple of times I have been smallmouth fishing. The problem I have seen is out of state fishermen coming to Pickwick Lake catching the famous smallmouth bass and putting them in coolers and killing the fish for their meat. I witnessed four boats from Missouri yesterday catching and keeping every smallmouth they caught. I was hoping that they were keeping them for maybe a weight-in for their club tournament. But I saw two of the boats load their boats with the fish still in their live-well and leave the parking lot. I also witnessed a boat from Tennessee with three fishermen in it that also kept everything they caught. They did not care if the fish were 1 pounders or 6 pounders. If you guys from out of state want to keep coming back to Pickwick Lake for great smallmouth fishing in the future you need to release at least the three pound fish and larger back into the lake so they can lay out their eggs during the upcoming spawn.

We want you to come to Pickwick for great fishing experience but you need to respect our resource and not keep all the fish you catch.If you want fish to eat catch them in your state or keep at least the smaller ones not the egg bearing size smallmouth,

Cary Sullivan – 6.10 Smallmouth

Cary Sullivan sent me this photo of a huge 6.10 pound smallmouth he caught yesterday while fishing on Pickwick Lake. He and his partner Lyn Melton also had a 5.1 and a several 3.5 to 4 pound smallies. He said their best five was around 25 pounds.

Cary Sullivan - 6.10 smallmouth

Cary Sullivan – 6.10 smallmouth

Hunter’s – First Meanmouth

Check out Hunter McClanhan with his first Mean Mouth bass, this is a cross of a smallmouth bass and a spotted bass. If you are unsure if you have one check the fishes tongue  to see if there is the small tooth patch like a spotted bass has. The smallmouth bass will not have this patch. On some of the fish you will also notice a more greenish hue and sometimes there is a lateral line as on a largemouth bass or spotted bass but not on the smallmouth which has vertical bars on it’s side.

Hunter's Meanmouth

Hunter’s Meanmouth

Dave’s Flathead

Here is Dave with a huge Flathead he caught while smallmouth fishing. As you can see you are a likely to catch about anything while fishing for bass. This one came on a plastic fluke while he was fishing for smallmouth bass. We also caught largemouth bass and drum.

Dave's huge flathead catfish.

Dave’s huge flathead catfish.