Fishing question about small mouth bass!!?
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Me and my best bud are goin fishing in a local river tommorow. My dad says there’s lots of small mouth bass there. I got all the fishing supplies a guy could ever want.
What do I need to catch some small mouth?
What areas should we focus on to find them?
And any other tips and tricks to finding and landing these little guys?
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Focus on areas near things, like large rocks, they like to hang out there.
Use a Bill Lewis rattle trap, red crawdad pattern, try different retrievals. Late May and Early Last April in Connecticut we were killing decent size smallies mostly around 3 pounds by reeling slow and pausing once in a while to let the rattle trap sit still on the bottom for a while. Sometime you will let it sit, then when you go to reel some more you can’t cuz a pissed off sally is on the other end! Best feeling in the world! Deeper holes usually works best for us. Say it is a small lake or river that widens up that is mostly only 6-8 feet feet look for those 12 ft or deeper holes. Just some advice..i’m sure you are already a smart man since your targeting smallies:)
You don’t need the best gear in the world, or the best bait or lure (But it would help!) so you can virtually catch them in a lot of ways. If you are not familiar with the float n’ fly, it’s a great way to take smallies from just about anywhere. I use a 1/16 oz. chartreuse pop eye jig for panfish, using the float n’ fly maneuver. Also try some rooster tails, soft plastic minnows, and maybe a crankbait or two. I would use a medium-light action St. Croix Mojo Bass Rod with a Plueger President equipped with 8 lb. Berkley Trilene XT Smooth Cast.
Focus in & around cover. Fish are not going to be straight out in the open water, or they would become prey them on selves. Weed beds, vegetation areas, and in and around schools of baitfish are the key factors in finding the smallmouth bass, and the other species of the area. When fishing a float n’ fly I just throw it out twitch it time or two, reel in, then twitch a time or two, and keep it going.
Well, there are a couple more tricks & tips that come to my mind. One is match the hatch. If the smallies are feeding on minnows, use a minnow colored Rapala Floating Minnow, if they are going after red shaded crayfish, go for a crayfish colored Strike King Bitsy Minnow, and so forth.
I live in PA and this time of year, the smallies are getting into prespawn mode. Look for areas with rocky gravel bottoms. The reason being that these fish will be trying to feast to get ready for the rigors of the spawn and rocky areas are where you will find the crawfish that the smallies will be targeting. Also, large boulders that create current breaks are good to fish, as the fish use these as ambush points for prey. Since crawfish are the main item on their menu…crawfish-style crankbaits, tubes, hair jigs, and jig and pigs will work well. Use earthy tones like browns and greens, as well as colors to imitate crawfish. Smallies will also take suspending minnow jerkbaits. Smithwick rogues, Lucky Craft pointers, rapala husky jerks, and rapala x-raps are all good choices as the fish will be lethargic and want an easy meal that sits in the strike zone, so that means your retrieves should be slow. Finally, if in the less than likely chance that the smallies are busting the surface, throw on a topwater…zara spooks and rapala skitter pops are highly acclaimed for this application. Sorry for being so long-winded. Hope this helps. Tight lines!