Thread: Ok My Latest Gripe About Smithville

Agree with you Lee... Use to be big patches of milfoil and other vegitation near the points... You could fish around and under the stuff (I was bass fishing then) but it disappeared... dunno why... pesticide runoff, sneaky sailors spraying the stuff?... Little vegitation for years... Now they've begun replacing it... the snowfenced areas in the cove seem to be working but the hydrilla... YUK... forget about it. Have been planning to try trolling this year... sounds like I might be in for lots of the stringy green stuff.

Haven't fished the main lake points yet this year,but I can take a guess about the floating weeds/vegatation.Lotsa crap got washed in during the flooding last month on my end.The dams been open for 4 weeks...hence all that crap is making its way towards the intake

Ahhhhh the grass is back. I think in 92 they dropped the lake levels down to work on the new sea walls of the golf course and to do some dam repair I mean they dropped it 8-10 feet all fall and winter. Little did they know in 93 the lake would average 10-12 feet high all Summer and Fall. In 94 there were small patches of grass in the lake but nothing like it was in 92. What great fishing the lake was with the grass. HEALTHY populations of LMB and crappie with huge schools of baitfish. Starting in 95 there were some issues with the LMB they appeared though never documented to have the LMB virus, big head, poor color and thin bodies. Tournament weight levels plumeted from 25-30lb average down to a big string every few weeks at 20lbs and the grass became almost extinct on the lake. Not only was the LMB fishery in decline the shad and crappie populations were not what they were prior to that. They have done a great job to restore that fishery I'm sure in the years to come with this grass the fishery will be outstanding for all fish species in the lake.

I will agree it is a pain in the posterior to troll and catch salad all day.

Hey Swampy I see ya made it over... Lee

Dang,another convert(convict):D

Yep,filled my tackle boxes walking the edge that winter

I agree that the grass is some what is a pain in the rear end to fish in but I honestly think that the grass makes for a better fishery in gerneral. There are more shad this year than I have ever seen and that means lots of food for the fish.

On a positive note though -- skiers don't like grass and that is a good thing. Heard a few complaining about it the other day at the ramp and they said they wouldn't be back because of to much grass!!!! Darn the bad luck for us fishermen!

Leein MO - find the edges of the grass with your depthfinder and fish the edges all the way around the points until late evening when the walleye move up to the inside of the grass to feed. My son and I have been doing pretty good on them for the past 3 weeks that way.

Drop me a PM and I will let you know how we have been catching them- it's not really a secret but not many fish this way around here


Good luck and happy fishing!

Showed my ignorance... After running a search on "hydrilla" I realized it wasn't the plant I was complaining about. It's the moss like stuff that bothers me. The stuff that will leave a long stringy mess covering a jig or minnow... What's THAT?

I'll have to say, growing up and fishing on Sam Rayburn, I got used to fishing hydrilla real quick. When I moved up here, it took me a long time to learn how not to fish weeds. IMO, I'll be glad to see the hydrilla. Once you learn how to fish it, it's a great fish attractor.