The last four times I've fished have been real good. The smallies are starting to go shallow just to put on the feed bag. It seems that early season smallies are all big. We're catching lots of fish from 18 to 19 inches.

My son, Erik spent a day with me and weighed a 19 incher that was 5 lbs 4 oz. The water temp has been up and down because of the cold nights. Last Saturday the water temp way back in a bay was 55 degrees so I started to throw a spinner bait with good success catching both pike and smallies on it. Two days ago in the same bay, the water temp was 48 degrees. We were not doing so well and I thought I would try the spinner bait. Even though it went against the commonly held belief that the best spinner bait temp starts at about 55 degrees. We caught fish all day almost at will. Smallmouth and northern pike plus three nice walleyes all on spinner baits.

Lesson learned: The fish do not read books.

All fish were released