Over the past two weeks, the mouth of our local Lake Huron tributary has been loaded with huge smallmouth bass eager to take the fly (sparkle grubs and Michigan wigglers).

On Sept. 9th, a buddy and I were gigglin' like school girls due to the number of big smallies we were catching. A conservative estimate of the number of fish we caught between 2.5 lbs. and 4 lbs. would be 30 during a four hour outing. The largest smallmouth that I put on the measuring tape was 21.5" long! It was a monster!! I went back the next morning, and the fish were gone! (you can see them from atop an old tressle bridge).

Well, this past Saturday evening I went back again to find the bass were back in. In 90 minutes of fishing I landed a dozen or so decent bass in the 15" - 17" range.

My question is this - would these be large lake specimens coming in to fatten up before winter, or river smallies dropping back to the lake to winter?

Tight lines everyone.

Andrew