Smith Mountain Lake Crappie trip

It will be that time of year again soon! By that, I mean the spring Crappie season! Some of the best fishing in Virginia is at Smith Mountain Lake. With 22000 acres of water and endless tributaries, it's no wonder why Smith Mountain Lake has some of the best fishing in Virginia.

My first trip to SML was about 20 years ago. On that trip I caught my limit of 10 to 14 inch crappie and I was the man. I continued to have that same kind of success year after year. Now, fast forward to about 3 years ago. A friend of mine, which I'll refer to as "Killer-Hog-Head", called me up and told me that he was catching 18" crappie, and lots of them. Now you and I both know that the way to tell if a fisherman is lying is to see if his lips are moving. Since he was on the phone and I couldn't see his lips, I took the bait and said, "Where and when?". He proceeded to tell me how big they were and how they fought, but was a little closed mouth on exactly where they were caught. Oh, he would tell me at SML, but 22000 acres is a lot of water. I wanted the specifics! Needless to say, there was a whole lot of talk, but not a lot of information. I was pretty tired of hearing about the "secret crappie bait" and the "special crappie techniques" that were needed to land the slab size crappie. After what seem to me to be about a good 30 min. of flapping his jowls, we finally set up a time that we could meet at the lake and I could get a first hand look at some of these monster crappie. I'll tell you all about that trip in my next Blog. Below are a few pictures.