Austin Neary
3/31/2025
Anglers love catching smallmouth bass of all size for a plethora of reasons: Their beautiful bronze and gold colors, explosive jumping abilities, and aggressive fish behavior have allowed smallmouth bass to earn their place as one of the most fun fish to pursue in North America. Smallmouth bass can be found in almost every state and there are many factors that play into the growth, population, and the ability to access/ pursue truly giant smallmouth in 2025. Our dedicated smallmouth bass article outlines five of the top places to fish for numbers and quality smallmouth bass. This list is not in a particular order or ranking, we are simply just highlighting the best fishing spots for you to catch these incredible fish!
Dale Hollow Lake Fishing:
First off… This list would 100% be an incomplete list without the lake that holds the current world record for smallmouth bass. Dale Hollow is a highland reservoir in the foothills of Appalachia, located on the border of Tennessee and Kentucky. This lake is known for massive amounts of bait fish, great crappie fishing, decent largemouth fishing, and fantastic smallmouth fishing. What makes this place so special is the slot limit on the smallmouth bass. To keep a smallmouth bass legally it has to be over 21”. That means 99.99% of smallmouth get caught and released back into the depths to continue to grow bigger and bigger! If you look at other fisheries that have trophy slot limits on bass such as Lake Fork that has a 24” largemouth keeper limit, you would know that limiting the ability to keep smaller fish in order to let them reach their full trophy size works! Every year Dale Hollow puts out some of the biggest smallmouth in the south east with multiple fish over 6lbs, a few over 7lbs and even a fish or two over 8lbs. Dale Hollow is for sure a top 5 trophy smallmouth fishery!
Pickwick Lake Fishing:
This monstrous reservoir is NO JOKE when it comes to big bass. Locals would argue this Tennessee River impoundment may be the #1 big bass producer in the state. It is loaded with 6lb+ smallmouth bass, 6lb+ spotted bass and thousands of 7lb+ largemouth bass with most tournaments having a mixed bag of HUGE smallies and a couple big largemouths to win. This lake has shell beds, current, grass, boulders, ledges and a ton of other productive structures to keep you guessing. Forage in Pickwick consists of crayfish, threadfin shad, gizzard shad and your common pan fish species. From up lake to down lake this place can produce numbers of FREAKZILLA smallmouth. Each spring multiple 7lb smallmouth bass are weighed in and caught from one end to the other. Time of the year is almost irrelevant to hook a true Alabama brick of gold! If you’ve never fished Pickwick, I promise you should add it to your smallmouth fisheries bucket list!
Wilson Lake Fishing:
Lets stay in north Alabama on the Tennessee River. Wilson Lake has gott’em! In a recent study done by Alabama Fisheries Biologists, Wilson Lake had more 5lb+ fish per acre than any other fishery in Alabama… crazy thing is 50% of the 5lbers were smallmouth. It’s often overlooked because it’s only 16 miles from dam to dam but what it lacks in size of lake it makes up for in size of fish. Every year there are dozens of 7lb+ smallmouth caught in Wilson and there is always STATE RECORD potential on the Tennessee River. These big bass forage on the ridiculous amount of gizzard shad located below the dams. Because of the short distance from dam to dam, there is always a lot of current that keeps the fish feeding and set up to hunt in current breaks. BTW 8lb smallies aren’t out of the equation! This place is a special place no doubt! Wilson is a must fish lake in the early spring and through the fall and well… back through the winter again!
Kentucky Lake Fishing:
If there was a lake that I can say was on the frits for just a total loss of hope it was Kentucky Lake. 10 years ago the lake was plagued with the super invasive Asian Carp, fisherman, biologists and locals were all desperately concerned about the future of the lake. 10 years later the lake is BACK and maybe better than ever! The Bassmaster Open’s were just there in spring of 2025 and it took almost 75lbs to win a 3 day tournament… that’s 5 fish a day, for 3 days. So 15 fish that weighed 75lbs, that's a 5lb average crazy thing was, THEY WERE ALL SMALLMOUTH! The tournament saw over a dozen 6lb smallmouth weighed in and they were plentiful. This place is huge, current oriented, and has a million places for the fish to hide because the lake is 180,000 acres. After interviewing many anglers after the event, most reiterated they caught more 5lb+ smallmouth than smallmouth under 4lbs. The asian carp before reaching maturity are basically the size of the mature threadfin shad or juvenile gizzard shad and the smallmouth eat’em! This lake will continue pumping out giant smallmouth for many years!
Watauga Lake Fishing:
Deep clear water, stocked with thousands of trout… That’s all you need to know. Trout are the best protein per pound of any baitfish species. Now mix that fact with a population of mean, aggressive smallmouth and you have Watauga Lake in East Tennessee. While speaking with a local guide and FishTips.com digital guide Cole Sands, he said, “this lake could put out a 30lb, 5 fish stringer of smallmouth.” He said the big smallies eat trout, chew trout, chase trout and did I mention eat trout… and they get HUGE! Watauga is deep, large and moderately intimidating and of course because trout are pelagic and smallmouth are pelagic, you could catch them anywhere, at any time. Watauga is a must fish!
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