Ken Duke and I did a podcast on The Big Bass Podcast about a year ago on Billy Westmoreland being the smallmouth bass GOAT. In that podcast we went through his book, Them Ol’ Brown Fish but Ken brought up another piece written by Westmoreland I hadn’t heard of. Today in Billy Westmoreland Smallmouth Expert, we’re going to cover that 8-page pamphlet.
Them Ol’ Brown Fish is the best book ever written about catching big smallmouth bass. When it was published in 1976, it was one of few books ever written on the subject. Then sometime in the late 1990s, Billy was asked by Jack Huddleston of Horse Creek Resort to write a book on his 10 best ways to catch a world record smallmouth.
Westmoreland said he hemmed and hawed about how to write the book and that’s obvious from what he produced. The result was an 8-page booklet, titled My 10 Best Ways to Catch a World Record Smallmouth Bass. The booklet was 4 1/4 inches by 7 inches in size and its contents were scant, to say the least.
The disappointing thing about the booklet was the tips and tactics given on how to catch a big smallie. Let’s elaborate on that by going through them. I have paraphrased the tips to shorten them.
Tip 1: Fish waters capable of producing a record. Although this is a tip, it’s an obvious statement.
Tip 2: Fish from December through April. In 1976, this would have been a good tip to give as only the diehard angler would face the nasty weather of winter and early spring. By the turn of the 20th century, this was common knowledge.
Tip 3: Big fish hold in certain areas of the lake. Westmoreland gives examples of what he means by this but again, by the 2000s, this was common knowledge especially to expert anglers.
Tip 4: What lure or lures to use. Here Westmoreland talks about the Pedigo Spinrite and the Silver Buddy. He gave a single sentence remark on the type of structure he hooked his “world record” and what depth it was in but that was it. Nothing on his retrieve, line, rod, etc.
Tip 5: This tip was more of a story on jig fishing. It’s more f an anecdote than a tip.
Tip 6: This was another story of fishing leadheads with grubs as well as single spin spinnerbaits.
Tip 7: Use a depthfinder to keep your bait in the productive zone. This is another tip that was common knowledge by the 1980s and not very helpful in the 2000s. A better tip would have been to talk about how to use the new GOS mapping coupled with the depth and what type of structure to look for.
I really don’t need to cover Tips 8 through 10 as they are more of the same. Anecdotes with little instruction. It’s almost as if Westmoreland didn’t want to write his secrets or felt that since he’d already done that in his 1976 book, there was no reason to write it again.
The booklets were only available at Horse Creek Resort on Dale Hollow Reservoir. Due to the fact the cover has Westmoreland’s date of birth and death, I believe it was put out after he passed.
The booklet sold for $1 each and when Ken was there on one of his annual trips, he picked up a few of them.
As much as I’m disappointed in the contents, I am thankful to have one due to the history of Billy Westmoreland. If you’re a bass fishing media collector like me, it is worth it to have in your collection of Westmoreland ephemera.
Below is the entire booklet for you to read.
By the time he wrote this, Billy had become disillusioned as regards the spreading of how-to-info for smallies. He felt that too many meat fishermen had done too much damage to the smallie population of his beloved Dale Hollow, and wanted to avoid adding to the problem.
Rich, I wondered if that might be the problem. It was obvious he didn’t want to give up any of his secrets in this. Thanks for filling in that gap.
I just got back from my first trip ever to Dale Hollow, serving as an MLF official for the Bass Pro Tour tournament just held there. Thoughts and memories about Billy Westmoreland and his intimate relationship with this lake frequently entered my thoughts while out on the water. No doubt his spirit still pervades the hills and “hollers” of this fabled smallmouth fishery.
That would have been a fun one to participate in Mike. How many of the anglers knew the historical significance of that place?
That’s a good question, Terry, that I did not propose to any of the anglers I shared a boat with. My hunch is that the majority of the younger anglers would sadly have no idea who Billy Westmoreland is. For me, growing up, Billy Westmoreland and Dale Hollow Lake were inseparable.
I did get a chance to see the world record smallmouth mount at the visitors center in Byrdstown, including the pearl colored Bomber that was trolled to catch it. Also saw a great photograph at the Sunset Marina dock of a 10lb.,14 oz. smallmouth caught in the late 60’s believed to be the second largest on record. It was caught on a white Doll fly marabou jig by an angler fishing for and catching white bass with a Zebco 33!,
Perhaps Billy didn’t write it at all? He had passed by the time it was published.
Paul, that is a possibility. Another thought is he wrote is right before he passed, or this was a second or third printing that had his DOB and DOD on the front cover. There is not publication info in the booklet so it’s hard to date when it was first printed.