If you are wanting to try to catch a few smallmouth I cannot stress enough that after we get a cold front or two to head out here to try. For whatever reason they seem to come alive in late October into December especially later in the day to evening. They also seem to feed more aggressively around the full moon phases. They are pretty simple to catch just by cranking rock with a Storm Wiggle Wart in chatreuse with brown back and also with a Texas rig craw in green pumpkin or watermelon with tips dyed chart.
A 1/4-7/16oz watermelon or green pumpkin/chartreuse jig works well too. They are more easily caught along the main lake most notably the east side and around the dam area. They will usually be less than 10' deep.
We don't have a ton of them but we have some bruisers. lake record is still over 7lbs and I have had one that went 6 1/2. When I saw the other smallmouth post I thought to mention Bridgeport.

i'm gonna try to get into some this fall on belton. i don't think i've ever caught a smallie in texas. or in the united states for that matter... all in canuck land.

How is the smallmouth fishing on Texoma?

I hear its good. I have not fished the lake enough times to really know for myself. I am not sure when they fire up out there bite wise.

Come to Murray.....

No thanks ill stick to chasing the pigs at Ivie, Fork, and Falcon. I don't see why people make such a big deal about small mouth??? When I go fishing I want to catch as big off a fish as possible. But I would loved to go up north where you catch 15-20 4-6lbers in a day. But fishing for maybe a shot at 1 4lber??? why if you go to any good Largemouth Lake in Texas you will get at least a couple if you know what your doing. Sorry for my rant. But I will never understand why catching smallmouth is so sought after in Texas.

I am not a huge fan of them either and will not go out of my way to catch them. I just live near Bridgeport and take advantage of the fact the lake has them. I would rather fish Fork any day than go after smallmouth.

Thanks for the info. I was out there this morning and the aerators were turned off. I managed to catch a couple of LMB and 1 nice crappie.

I have caught 2 of them over 3 lbs at Ivie, and although i do not go hunting fot them is a fun suprise to set the hook and have a fish come flying 3' into the air.

Yeah just wait until they jump 4', flip 100 times, dive 15' in 1 second, jump again 3'high and spin 50 times and shake your hook out. It's exciting!

BUT it's got to be a good one....the small ones are fun...but they need shoulders!

Nothing like a largemouth fight!

Mark, did Bridgeport get any significant rain tonight? I'm about 20 or 25 miles south of the lake and I got some good hard rain, just not for very long.

I have standing water in my backyard but I doubt it raised the lake much if any. Good thing is they have not been letting water out so thats a start. we have 2-3 fast but hard rains so far tonight. Hope we get a LOT more.

it got 2' from the rain last week...river was chocolate milk on sunday