Smallmouth insanity NY state

[bulletbob]

No, not a NJ report, but not that far away, and a few NJF members do fish the susquehanna river each year..
Last week, i got about 25 keep size SMB in 2 hours fishing in my 14 footer.. Nice 21 inch walleye as well..
Knowing the fishing will be shutting down soon, within a week or two depending on weather. I got out a few hours this afternoon, this time from shore.. Too rainy windy and nasty to trailer the boat...
I started pitching small plastics at exactly 12 PM in the afternoon.
First 3 casts yielded 3 nice size SMB, and the 4th cast was a hookup that came unbuttoned.. I could tell it was going to be a crazy bite, and started counting.. just because...

Caught SMB #25 at 1:15 PM.. decide to try for 30..
Caught #30 at 1 :45.. decided to try for 35..
Caught #35 at 2:15
#40 at 2:45... said , the hell with it, I want to try for 50..
at 3:30. I caught #47, got snagged and broke off AGAIN for about the 10th time, got disgusted, was windy and cold as hell, so i quit at 47 SMB in 2 1/2 hours.. All except 3 were keeper size. most between 12-15 inches...
I have has a few couple hour stretches on the river where I caught 25 or 30, but never 47.. Also I was snagged a LOT and had to retie... Almost every single cast for the entire time was a landed fish, a dropped hookup, or a retrieve that was hit at least 2-3 times... Crazy to see gorgeous SMB in massive numbers like this.. Happens every year in Nov... ONLY Nov.. Shuts off around Dec 1, warm years maybe until the 2nd week..
The rest of the year the southern tier NY section of the river runs a nasty looking brownish green with algae slicks, muck, and stink , and I catch little to nothing a lot of trips.. A good day I might catch a few bass and a walleye or two in May, but by June the water looks disgusting, and fishing is pretty slow for most guys until it clears up and cools down in late fall, after most of the leaves are off the trees...

All of these fish were caught within 100 feet or so of where I parked my truck.. I was catching 15 fish in a row at times standing on the same rock ...

Its funny, after an hour i was actually bored.. Very seldom do i catch so many nice size gamefish that i get weary of it, but today was one of those days... Now all i have to do is figure a way to catch these river bass in numbers like this the rest of the year..
I don't keep many bass at all during any given year, but did keep 2 today, because thats all there is to keep to eat unless you get a Walleye.. No perch, rock bass, trout, sunnies etc, so if you want to eat a few fish, its bass.. I only take them late in the year when the water is cold and a little cleaner looking.

Some guys here might be familiar with the Pa section of the river, but the NY section is different, and dirtier.. Its mostly mud bottom, and flows through dairy farms until it reaches Binghamton/Vestal, where it gets bombarded from the sewage plants and storm drains ..

Anyway, you must know which sections hold fish, and when you hit one of the areas with "good bottom" on the right day , like today, the sheer numbers of bass in some parts of this river is astounding... bob