PRE-SPAWN SMALLMOUTH & STRIPER RUN 2026 REPORT

Two and a half months ago, we were finally thawing out from an intense bought of winter weather that froze most of our rivers and had kept us off the water for several weeks. As I write this, reflecting on the past few months of fishing, it's hard to believe that it happened. The late-winter and early spring of 2026 will likely (hopefully) be remembered as one of the driest and warmest in recent memory. This is the third year in a trend of low rainfall and early warm temps, and definitely the most severe. Exceptionally low river levels and rapidly warming water temps caused both our pre-spawn smallmouth season and the spring striper run to begin, peak, and end early--and on the striper front, low water levels made the run a muted version of its usual self. All of that said, we managed to roll with the punches and knock out as many good days as we could, with some real standout stuff intermingled.

I started my pre-spawn smallmouth fishing on March 1, this year, and, in true 2026 fashion (I'm learning), was hit with some funky conditions. Rapid snowmelt, thanks to the blistering transition from heavy ice and snow to unseasonably warm weather, rapidly cooled our rivers and reservoirs, causing shad kills throughout the region, anywhere threadfin are present. Those first few days of smallmouth fishing saw large numbers of dead threadfin floating down the river, which made for some good smallmouth fishing, at first. As the shad kept flowing and the smallmouth got more and more satiated, the quality and predictability of the fishing slowed down. Though we were netting some really fat, big smallmouth, it became tough to target fish that were unwilling to chase or move. The consolation prize was some surface-feeding common carp that we were able to fool sight fishing with surface flies and weightless streamers.

The second and third full weeks of March were our best, this year, as this is when we had the most normal water temps. All of our rivers fished well, and fishing was pretty consistent. As the month waned and April came, we began seeing exceptionally warm water temps and exceptionally low water. In some of our rivers, we saw temps as warm as 70 degrees around April 1, which pushed fish to begin exhibiting spawning behavior and actually spawning a few weeks ahead of schedule. This wildcard condition, coupled with exceptionally low water, wind, and some normal cold fronts, made for some challenging fishing.

Still, as I mentioned, we had some very memorable days.

The striper run in many ways mirrored the pre-spawn smallmouth period. The fishing began a few weeks early and was chopped a few weeks short. Significantly low water meant that a large volume of fish didn't make the trip all the way up the river all at once, and we saw multiple smaller schools fill in over a wider timeline. We saw some great morning and evening sessions and some that we had to grind through. A few evenings, we found some explosive topwater fishing, and it's always spectacular to be present for peak spawning activity (which also happened about three weeks early).

Next year we will bump our striper weeks up a little bit to skew earlier. Though the weeks we currently spend there are historically the best, the early springs we've been having the last few years have skewed things a bit.

Overall, it's been a challenging spring, but we've hit some great high notes, and the fish continue to bite, though sometimes in patterns that depart the seasonal norm. The transition from spring patterns to summer patterns will likely be similarly early this year, and we're already starting to see some summer-flavored fishing.

See y'all out there!