Decided to try Goodwin after being blown off Big lake this morning! Goodwin has a couple coves you can seek a little shelter in, so, after paying too much to launch ha ha, we headed Northwest into the second cove from the State Park. My buddy started fishing for largemouth with a jig, and I tried for smallmouth with a different rig. We fished around the entire cove without a nibble, so I decided to run to the other side of the lake across from the State Park on the West shore where the canal to Lake Shoecraft is. Parked the boat in 15' of water and began casting towards the shoreline.

My pal casted in towards some logs with his jig, when he didn't get a bite he began reeling back in slowly, WHAM!! He thought it was a trout? But it fought too hard! Sure enough it was a smallmouth, and a nice one to boot!! He got her to the boat, landed it, and what a nice fish!! 4.6 very fat pounds!! I immediately broke out the crankbaits, and started trying different sizes and depths.... Blew with the wind down the lake a little ways and came to one of the many shallow rocky flats. I casted my medium (10') diving crawdad colored crankbait up into 3' of water, cranked it down til it hit bottom then began to "slow roll" it back to the boat letting it smack and bang into rocks..... on my third cast WHAM! My turn, and another decent smallie....3.5lbs to be exact. We continued all the way down the lake to the Lake Goodwin Store and R.V. Park area without another hit??

I have to think that the wind was just creating too much turbulence in the shallower water, and the majority of fish moved out deeper? When that happens, usually you can still reach them with deep diving crankbaits, and heavy weighted plastics...however, trying to hold position over the deeper structure in 20+ mph wind was a bit much for me and what was left of my battery, so I will have to return later in the week!!

Once again my buddy took the pics, so I have none to post....when we got to the launch to leave he also bragged about catching the bigger fish!! I agreed his was bigger, but reminded him that I actually caught mine on PURPOSE!!
LOL! good times!

Heck we've only been fishing together for 33 years, I'll get him back!!

---