One thing to keep in mind about Lake Erie smallmouth fishing before the legal harvest season opens; if you do, you are helping to decrease the population of smallmouth.

The bass are spawning. The invasive species the Round Goby is all around the Smallmouth redds (nests). If the smallmouth guarding the eggs leaves the redd for even a minute, the gobies immediately move in and begin eating the eggs. When you catch one of these nest guarding smallmouth and take it off the nest for 5 minutes, the gobies will have eaten many of the eggs, if not most of them.

I have seen this first hand when scuba diving, and not just with smallmouth. The gobies are nortorious egg eaters, they even eat their own species eggs (I've watched this first hand also).

SO, if you fish for smallmouth before the spawning season is over, you are directly helping to degrade the fishery. You may have some fisherman tell you this either isn't true or not a big deal. I'd love to take those guys underwater and show them just how fast the gobies invade an open fish redd. I have video of this, so anyone who wants to challenge it is more than welcome to contact me.

West Basin