Tom K. I remember a post of long ago that told of you catching a large smallmouth in the new river,in VA.
could you tell me what equipment you used and what artificial lure you were using.
I fish in the head waters of the James river near Lynchburg,VA Thank you

5-weight fly rod and a wooly bugger sort of thing. That's about all I have used for smallmouth in the past 10 or 12 years.

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There are fish over 20" in the James. If you want to be able to handle a fish like that under non-ideal conditions you should skip the ultralights and 4 lb test. I use Med-Lt spinning gear for tubes, flukes, senkos, and small crankbaits. For larger crankbaits, spinnerbaits, etc. I use medium baitcasting tackle. The length of the rods is really more dependent on how long of a rod you can effectively fish from the craft you are fishing from. Generally 6-6.5 works best overall for me.

I think maybe the rod you are talking about is in rodmaker volume 7 issue 1

That's a spinning rod. The rod I used for the particular fish asked about was a fly rod, if that makes any difference.

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Found the post. My bad. Nice fish.