UL creek fishing for smallies

[INFrank]

Water's too cold now for kayak fishing, so I've branched out into more creek fishing. I did a bit of wading this spring but didn't catch much beyond a few little sunfish, rock bass, and a very small smallie. Now I have a bit more experience, and the fish size and frequency is ticking up.

Today's adventure took me to a local creek known to hold big smallies. My best so far has only been 11ish inches, and I tied that best today. All the rest of the smallmouth were in the 4-8in range...but still fun! The rock bass and shiners were hitting, as well.

I fished exclusively a 1/50oz jig, changing out the plastics between microcraws and a little Moondog Baits thingie. 1/50oz. seemed to be the sweet spot for the shallow creek, 40-80 feet wide and mostly 2-12in deep with a few holes maybe 3 feet deep. That weight gave a little more casting distance than 1/64oz. and would sink slowly and drift in the current.

Rod was a this new Gray Wolf extra-fast 6' UL I picked up recently, paired with a Kast King Zephyr SFS 1000. I'm a "meh" on the reel, but really like the rod. It gets a solid 45-50 feet with that little jig and picks up the bites from tiny creek chubs and shiners too small to get the bait in their mouths. Line was an Aliexpress nano braid (Zukibo 5.3lb, I believe) with a 4lb. Trout SOS leader. No issues with knots slipping, which pleased me.

Lately I've been rocking a 4'6" Magic L with 2lb mono on these small creek trips. That one would have worked fine here, too, but I liked having a longer rod for the extra casting distance.

Great fun on this trip! My next challenge is to get a smallie over 12" before winter sets in.