Our boat driver Scott Silver told us smallmouth in the St. Lawrence have gotten much bigger in the past 10 years. "Used to be a 4 pound smallie was big. Now a 6 pounder is big," he said. "And we occasionally catch a 7 pounder."
Why is that I asked. Well, freighters dumping their ballast in the St.
Lawrence brought over an invasive species called the goby. They look a lot like a tadpole (see photo). There are huge numbers of them in the river now, and smallmouth love to eat them. State fisheries people estimate the smallmouth diet is 99 percent goby now. And the largemouth diet is 70 percent goby.