"I must have jerked the right bait past the right rock at the right time," said Steve McLarty of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, recapping the presentation that produced a new Oklahoma state-
record smallmouth bass on Saturday, March 4.
The right bait was a Clown-colored Smithwick Suspending Super Rogue. The right rock was over a main-lake ledge in Eufaula Lake and 8 to 12 feet beneath the surface. The right time was about 9:00 a.m. during a Fishers of Men tournament.
Ironically, McLarty did not take home big bass honors for the tournament with his state-record smallmouth bass, which weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounce and was 23.5 inches long and 19 inches in girth. Another angler brought a 9-pound largemouth to the scales.
March is Smithwick Rogue time for many anglers throughout the country, and McLarty is definitely part of that group. He especially likes Super Rogues because he can cast one a little farther and get one a little deeper than a traditional Suspending Rattlin’ Rogue. McLarty also is partial to Super Rogue colors, and he said he believes he owns some of every color made.
The Smithwick Rogue, originally introduced in 1964, has a distinctive rolling wobble. Many tournament anglers consider suspending versions of Rogues ideal lures for early spring, when pre-spawn largemouths and smallmouths are staging just out from spawning areas and are feeding on winter-slowed baitfish.
McLarty noted that his record-producing Super Rogue, which he had modified slightly by replacing the front hook with a red treble, was perfectly balanced and sat extremely level in the water when it suspended.
The Super Rogue is 5 inches long and weighs 3/8 ounce. It has a counter-balance weighting system that allows the weight to shift to the rear of the lure during casts to allow for longer and more accurate casts.
McLarty and his partner fished a Rogue pattern all day. He would begin each retrieve with a few hard jerks to get the bait down to the strike zone and then present it with series of rod tip twitches. They caught both largemouths and smallmouths that day, but McLarty had a big smallie in mind when he pulled up on the spot that produced the state-record fish.
Eufaula Lake was first stocked with smallmouth bass in 1992, according to Garland Wright, central region fisheries supervisor for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. The lake was stocked with a reservoir-strain smallmouth bass that originated in Tennessee, and Eufaula is now home to a self-sustaining population. The sprawling reservoir has a growing reputation as a first-class smallmouth bass fishing destination.
McLarty’s big fish was the third state-record smallmouth bass in four years. The previous record smallmouth holder was Karl Council, also of Broken Arrow, who caught an 8-pound, 1-ounce smallmouth bass in March of 2005 on W.R Holway Lake in northeastern Oklahoma.