I'm not snarky, am I?

http://blogs.suntimes.com/bowman/2010/1 ... ive_2.html

a tad but you wear it well.

i fished several of the spots you mentioned (including saw wee kee) and never saw you so i am pretty certain you dont fish in those areas
still dont understand the reasoning for fishing the "lift" this time of year...gapen mentions it in his "river smallmouth" book and i didnt understand the logic there either although i do fish it and have caught on a couple (not all ) lifts i have fished.

We must be strangers passing on the river. You might be one of the ones I saw there when I was driving by one day.

The lifts go from relatively deeper to shallower. The rock warms up and attracts baitfish. Watch next time you go walking around in the lift area. You should see the baitfish. Bugs and the few remaining crayfish that are still moving around too. The water starts to slow down pretty good at that point too.

When I saw Brad (boogaloo) out there the other day I told him to put his minnows all the way up into the shallows. He was catching nice smallies in less than a foot of water all the way up before it went over the top of the riffle.

They seem to be staging areas for the minnow species. Must be something there that they are feeding on. Little bugs maybe. There were some pretty good bug hatches going on those last few warm days.