It never fails.

About this time of year my thoughts begin to turn towards fishing for smallmouth bass.

I"m often asked, "What is your favorite fish to catch?"

My answer is always the same. Smallmouth bass.

The first smallmouth I ever caught was in the crystal clear waters of Lake West Okoboji on an October afternoon.

It is imprinted in my mind. Okoboji in the fall is a fantastic place. Oaks along the shoreline were decked out in their beautiful fall colors of red, yellows and oranges.

I was in the middle of Emerson"s Bay fishing with Jim Stone, a legendary Okoboji angler and jig tyer who lived on the shoreline just west of Pillsbury Point.

We were anchored on the big rockpile and if you know Okoboji, you know the spot.

I cast a 1/16-ounce Jim Stone jig and watched my line go slack as the tiny offering bottomed out in 16 feet of water. The jig was tied by Cap Kennedy and named for his good friend.

I swept up the tip of my 5-foot fiberglass rod and began swimming the tiny jig over the rocks. I expected a perch but as the line tightened and began to race through the water, I knew this was no perch.

Moments later a chunky, bronzed beauty of a fish erupted from the water throwing water droplets everywhere and then dived nose first back in and began a tug of war I was not sure I could win.

Stone smiled an picked up the landing net. It was some time later, however, before we would use the net.

A couple more jumps and more power dives ensued before I worked the fish close enough to the boat to net.

I held that 2-pound smallie in my hands and admired every inch of it, realizing another fishing goal had been reached for me. Stone took my camera and I grinned broadly before slipping the fish over the side to freedom.

That was back in the 1960s and I caught many more smallies from Okoboji and Spirit Lake, but it wasn"t until I fished Lake Vermilion in the 1970s in northeastern Minnesota"s Iron Range country that I really understood what smallmouth fishing was all about.

This was Canadian shield country and here the smallmouth bass really holds court. The lakes are tailor made for smallmouth and fish up to five pounds were plentiful in those days. Incredibly, almost no one fished for them. They were not walleyes, I guess.

Since then I"ve fished too many lakes, rivers, streams and reservoirs for smallmouth to even remember. Some of those trips were incredibly successful for this fish which always seem willing to bite whenever you can find him.

And that"s one of his problems. Smallmouth can be overfished and they have been in some waters.

Even though I have fished smallmouth in exotic locales in lakes seldom seeing a fishermen in many areas of Canada, it is not those places that occupy my daydreams during the month of March. Nor is it West Lake Okoboji which remains one of the top smallmouth lakes in the country.

No, it is the Missouri River that I dream about.

And it is Lake Francis Case that gets may nod for smallmouth fishing during the month of April.

It begins, most years, during the second week of the month.

Warming water means greater smallmouth activity.

It"s the bays such as Pease Creek, Snake Creek and untold others that warm first. Smallmouths by the thousands move into that warming water where the food chain is beginning to churn.

There they will strike anything that moves. Spinnerbaits are my first choice when fish are really active. I use 1/8-ounce spinnerbaits on 8-pound test line and concentrate my efforts on water less than six feet deep. Sometimes I"m in water so shallow that the boat is sitting aground.

Best fishing will be when the water is warmest and that will be mid afternoon till near dark.

Tubes on 1/8-ounce leadheads are my second choice and I usually have a second rod rigged that way in case a bass swirls on, but misses the spinnerbait.

This fishing will hold up until about mid May and then goes into a slump after the spawn.

Cold water smallmouth is a daydream you can make happen. I"d suggest you try it this year.

Larry Myhre is outdoors editor of the Journal. Reach him at (712) 276-5965 or email at: lfentfish@msn.com