Fishing Report For Lewis Smith Lake, AL

By Rick Seaman

May 29, 2025

Popular Fish Species Reports
Lewis Smith Lake Fishing Video
Available Fish Species
Today's Weather & Forecast
Fishing Boat Rentals
Boat Launch Ramps
Marinas
Fishing License
Map
Contact Info

Fishing Report Lewis Smith Lake, AL

Fishing Reports

Popular Fish Species Lewis Smith Lake, AL

Spotted Bass

Current Report: Good
Outlook: Good To Very Good

Lewis Smith Lake is well known as a great spotted bass fishery. Spots are being caught in deeper water than the largemouth and smallmouth bass, as they tend to school, and hold in deeper water outside the same areas as other bass. They prefer steep, rocky banks with ledges in 10 to 35 of water, often even deeper. They move up and down the water column on these structures looking for food and comfortable water temperatures. Swimbaits, jerkbaits, tube baits, worms, spinnerbaits and topwater are popular for spots, and are all catching fish around the lake. .

Black Crappie - White Crappie

Uncle Buck's Panfish Creatures Curly Tail Minnow Rigged

Current Report: Good To Very Good
Outlook: Good To Very Good

Crappie fishing continues to impress as anglers are catching nice crappie here at Smith Lake. Spring is in full bloom and it's the premiere time to be on the water as crappie have moved into shallow coves and bays to spawn. Expect to find crappie in 3 to 8 feet of water. Docks, brush piles, laydowns, standing timber and vegetation are all producing good catches. Small crappie jigs or live minnows are the top choices here, and the crappie are willing to bite. Once the spawn is over, and the Summer sun warms the shallows, crappie retreat to depths of 15 to 25 feet or deeper. Light tackle with 4 lb to 8 lb line is ideal. Anglers report success using fish finders and forward facing sonar to help locate schools of crappie, which tend to stack vertically around cover.

Striped Bass

Current Report: Good
Outlook: Good To Very Good

Water temperatures are in the mid 60's now, and that's ideal for the stripes to spawn. They have been migrating up-river, and spawning, and will migrate back to the main lake over the next few weeks. Roaming schools of threadfin shad and gizzard shad keep schools of big stripers fat and healthy. Anglers being successful at fishing for stripers here are locating these schools of baitfish, and finding wolf packs of stripers nearby. Fish finders are a big help in locating these roaming schools. Stripers exceeding 30 pounds await anglers stealth enough to trick them into biting. Casting, jigging and trolling are popular methods to catching stripers lately. Swimbaits, jerkbaits, crankbaits, spoons, live bait and cut bait are all effective here.

Fishing Video

Fish species to fish for...

Guide to fishing for largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass, channel catfish, black crappie, white crappie, bluegill, redear sunfish, white bass and striped bass at Smith Lake in Alabama.

Lewis Smith Lake is a 21,000-acre lake with over 500 miles of shoreline. It is notorious for great striped bass fishing, but also has quality populations of catfish, crappie, bluegill, white bass, sunfish and largemouth, spotted and smallmouth bass. There is limited access for fishing from the bank.

Primary fish species to catch

Click images for fishing tips and details about each species.

Today's Weather & Forecast

Fishing Boat Rentals

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Public Boat Launch Ramps & Landings

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Marinas

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Fishing License

Click here for a Alabama Fishing License.

Map - Fishing & Access

Rick Seaman is a fishing enthusiast with over five decades of fishing experience, a retired tournament fisherman, author of numerous published articles on fishing, and co-author of the book "Bass Fishing - It's not WHAT you throw, It's WHERE you throw it".