Headed up to Pinto Dam at the South end of Grant County's Billy Clapp Lake on Thursday morning. The water was very clear,as usual, and the water was sitting right at 58 degrees when my friend Rob Grassley and I arrived to launch my Jon boat.. I knew it was gonna be a decent day of fishing because Rob caught two very fat 13" smallies on a Kalin's clear black pepper 3" grub off of the dock while I was launching the boat. We motored south, along the docks and boat slips- pitching smoke grubs and 3" doubble tails on 1/16th oz jigheads. My first fish was a 10" dink, but Bob's third fish was a beautiful 15" dark colored male Smallmouth that jumped twice before he landed it. I finally got into the game by throwing a Charlie's Custom Baits 2.5" smoke/salt and pepper reaper leach with a chartruse tail far up along the shaded inside egdges of several boat docks. The Smallmouth here were schooled up and very aggressive when they kept darting out from under a dock that had numerous underwater support struts holding it up. I watched every strike happen as they swam out to inhale my leech! I caught 5 fish there, and three more down the bank on a slow tapering chunk rock pile in open water. Bob and I tied up for a bit at the log boom and we both drop shotted FX Robo worms in 22 feet of water, set at about a foot of of the bottom. The pick ups were very light, but the Smallies were bigger coming out of the deeper water, with 13" to 15" fish being the average size. After hooking 3 fish apiece, the bite slackened and we headed up the West side of the lake and past the launch to target some of the isolated inlet bays and Basalt ledges. On my first cast into the shade cast by a cliff, I caught a nice Smallsmouth on a topwater bait, (a gold and black # 9 floating Rapala.) The rest of the morning we caught decent fish on plastics, by keying in on points, inside cuts and the shade cast off of the Basalt by the mid morning sun. On one spot, Bob hooked and lost a huge Smallie that he had spotted on a bed. I cast up into that same area, and a lovely 17" Smallmouth hit my Yammamoto 3" Tiny Ika jig in cinnamon/pepper and she took me for a ride! Since this was the spawning season, all of our fish were released. I took the last of my pictures on my Disposable Kodak camera and I hope to get them for you on a disk soon.I will be back hopefully, before the jet skiers crowd us out later in the month. The Jigmiester

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