Smallmouth movement

[zaknorman75]

Hey all,

with the spring fishery heating up I hope everyone is enjoying their time on the water! I have a question I hope some experienced smallie anglers could help me with.

Late last summer and into early fall I discovered myself a real small mouth honey hole in a local river. As we all know, water levels end of last year were incredibly low. That being said the flow in that stretch of river was very low. Water was still moving throughout the stretch and by no means were any areas of the river cutoff from one another - but compared to now it is night and day. Last year it was full of smallmouth. I could nail around 3 respectable fish every time I went, with plenty of dinks, redbreasts, and suckers mixed in.

I've been hitting that section of river hard for the past two weeks, five times in total. Not a touch. The river is moving very well. But I still know every hole and seam, visibility is good and with my polarized costas I spotted a single fish.

Sad part is about 1/4 mile down river, the river spills out into a large body of water (trying not to spotburn myself ) With this springs heavy rains and how strong that river ran, do you think the majority of the fish in the section of the river washed down and into the waterbody? With the way the river runs, I think it would be impossible for anything to move back up it into that section.

I'm just looking for opinions. Is it possible all the fish washed out? If there is no real way for anything to move back up the river (there isn't), would this area be devoid of fish for the near future? I was also thinking well fish can move down river from above.. but this river is unqiue in that sections are cut off. I'm thinking if the heavy rains we had all spring really pushed the majority of fish out of the river and into the waterbody, it would take some time for populations to bounce back.

Thoughts?