A recent phone conversation with Roger Stegall, top-notch smallmouth guide on Pickwick, the smallmouth mecca on the Tennessee River: “I’m doing an article comparing early-spring smallmouth movements on top northern fisheries and southern waters.”

“You got smallmouth up north?” he interrupts in a dead-serious tone. Then I hear him chuckle.

“Come up north sometime, and I’ll show you,” I shoot back.

“You don’t grow them as big as in Pickwick,” he retorts. “Remember those big brownies we caught two years ago when you were here?” I responded that one day in May on Lake Erie, two of us caught and released over 100 smallies, half of them over 3 pounds, about 20 over 5 pounds, 10 over 6, and the biggest one over 7. A moment of silence on the other end, then: “We have eight-pounders down here.”

“In 1995, Andrew Kartesz set the New York State record with an 81⁄4-pound Lake Erie smallie,” I ventured, “and Randy Van Dam—Kevin’s brother—set the Ohio record with a 9.5 pounder from Erie. I have a picture of a 7-pound 10-ounce smallmouth from Pennsylvania …”

“Okay, okay,” he broke in, “When you get an 8-pounder, send me a photo!”

Battle Lines

It’s North versus South all over again. Everyone wants to catch trophy-sized smallmouth. If your lake has big ones, you’ve got bragging rights.

But what’s a “big” smallmouth? Based on conversations with average anglers, I find that most are looking for their first true 4-pound bronzeback. Although any smallmouth gets my adrenalin flowing, I think it takes a brown bass in the 5- to 6-pound range to be recognized as big. And what about an 8- or even 9-pound smallmouth? That’s the fish of a lifetime. Which waters these days have the best chance of producing smallmouth of such proportions?

A 7-pounder is within the grasp of anglers on a number of waters, in a broad region that extends from the Canadian border and the Great Lakes, south to Pickwick Lake in Alabama, Jocassee in South Carolina, and Dale Hollow on the Kentucky-Tennessee line.

Whether you’re hunting a big brown bass North or South, spring is the time to go. But comparing the northern and southern regions, the timing of the spring smallmouth bite varies considerably. Perhaps a better way of describing that period is “from the end of winter to the start of spawning.”

Southern Sojourn

Because spring bass movements come early in the South, Pickwick is the place to start. According to Stegall, winter on Pickwick is defined by a water temperature of around 40°F. Smallmouths typically hold 25 to 30 feet deep on ledges off the main river channel. Stegall’s preferred presentations are either a bucktail jig or wide-tail grub, fished slowly along bottom structure.

“If we get a stretch of warmer weather that heats the water a few degrees, some smallies may move a bit, but they drop back as the temperature falls. Regardless, I stick with grubs and bucktails, with the only adjustment being the speed of the retrieve, from a slow crawl in the coldest water to a fast hop in warmer temperatures. What we consider the initial spring movement actually begins mid-February, when water temperature climbs to 45°F and stays there.”

With the first sign of stable, warming water, fish begin moving up creek arms to secondary ledges and onto humps, ridges, or high spots closer to main-lake spawning flats. Stegall says key structures typically crest at 10 to12 feet.