Favorite Trophy Smallmouth Hideouts Story & Photos By Darl Black
Big smallmouth — once you’ve caught one, you want to catch another and another and another.
You can never get enough. It’s an addiction.
It’s best to identify a smallmouth addict so you don’t unintentionally befriend one, thinking he or she might become a new largemouth fishing buddy. If not forewarned about their pastime passion, you might be swept up in their brown-fish addiction as well.
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In many respects, the afflicted anglers appear normal. However, when the topic of bass fishing comes up, they only talk about bronzebacks, smallies and brownies. A photo of a big smallmouth causes their pulse to quicken, sweat beads to form on the forehead and their mouth to fall open. They will declare sick days from work, skip appointments and make excuses to spouses when a bite is on.
These individuals will suddenly drop whatever they are doing and head to the lake or river when the conditions are right to catch giant smallmouth. Foul weather does not intimidate them, as they know the biggest brown bass often bite best in miserable conditions. In the advanced stages, these addicts will travel to the four corners of the nation in search of the best seasonal bite of big fish.
There is no known cure, but with proper treatment, the individual can live a long life. Doctors do not recommend trying to restrain an inflicted angler. Instead, the prescription is to go fishing when big smallies are chowing down.
Bronzeback Locations
The primary smallmouth range runs from New England down the Appalachians to northern Georgia, west to Arkansas, north to Minnesota and east across the Great Lakes region. There are also significant populations in Oregon and Washington as well as in selected lakes in all other states except Florida and Louisiana.
The geographic variances from the northern to the southern part of the range translate to differences in the timeline of seasonal big-fish bites. For example, when smallies are on beds in northern Alabama, smallmouth in Lake Erie are still in the earliest stages of prespawn. However, by observing regionalized water temperatures, you can anticipate peak periods.
There are pitfalls to using water temperature as a guideline. Readings are taken on or very near the surface. Even though the temperature of surface water is not the temperature of deeper water, experienced anglers nonetheless successfully base their patterns on a near-surface reading. However, it is critical that you obtain stable temperature readings over a period of days rather than an isolated reading that may spike due to an unseasonably sunny day.
With the help of addicted anglers around the country, here are the windows of opportunity for catching big smallmouth.
Early Spring
When the water temperature hovers between 39 to 50 degrees, smallmouth bass will be deeper than largemouth in natural lakes and reservoirs. Brownies begin stirring in the deep, triggered by the lengthening of the daylight period and by small increases in water temperature. Of course, in the northern range, the water temperature is considerably colder during the initial stage than in more southern waters where lakes rarely drop below the mid-40s in winter.
Pennsylvania smallmouth fanatic Dave Lehman will be out within days after ice-out.
“Depending on the weather, ice is usually gone by April 1,” he says. “While surface temperatures jump quickly from the high 30s into the 40s, down deep it’s warming slower.”
Lehman begins probing areas that he knows to be wintering sites. These are typically about 30 feet and deeper.
“On natural lakes, these are areas where hard-bottom rubble meets muck or where a slight rise of small chunk rock creates an island in an otherwise barren, smooth flat,” he explains. “Other times I search for bottom-hugging baitfish schools with the sonar.”
Lehman uses a 1⁄2-ounce jigging spoon to target these deep-water sites by vertical jigging. He calls his technique “finessing a spoon,” with no hard rod snaps but rather a gentle rod twitch.
According to Lehman, when the surface temperature reaches the mid-40s, an early migration of big bass toward shallower water begins. The fish typically stage at the base of a fairly steep breakline along an extended point, feeding on baitfish such as emerald shiners.
“With this staging occurring in 18 to 25 feet, I add a curly-tailed grub presentation along with spoonin’,” Lehman says. “Some guys like a hair jig, but I have better success with a 4-inch grub in a baitfish hue on a 1⁄4-ounce head. With the grub, I make long casts, let it sink to the bottom and then begin a slow-roll retrieve back to the boat, letting the grub bump bottom occasionally.”
When the window is open, be prepared for huge smallmouth bass. But as suddenly as the bite started, the window will shut, and the big fish move on.
Mid To Late Spring
As the water warms from 50 degrees to the low 60s, the focus for big smallies shifts to shallow water on points and flats. This is the prime prespawn suspending jerkbait bite. Depending on where you fish, this window may open as early as 48 degrees or as late as 55 degrees. Anglers typically work their bait over water as deep as 15 feet or as shallow as 4 feet. The bite typically lasts until smallies start bedding, which usually occurs when the water temperature hits the low to mid-60s.
For Missouri’s Table Rock Lake, Brian Snowden says the key temperature is 55 to 65 degrees. During these times, he targets the gravel points with a Smithwick Rogue.
Over at Tennessee’s Center Hill Reservoir, Jim Duckworth starts working jerkbaits over secondary creek points when the water temperature reaches 52 degrees.
On Lake St. Clair near Detroit, Joe Balog begins jerking a Lucky Craft Pointer on rubble flats as soon as the water hits 50 degrees.
While a short pull followed by a long pause works in colder temperatures, you want to create a more panicked, erratic cadence for smallies when the temperature climbs into the mid-50s. Also, bolder color patterns like clown and chartreuse sides generally increase strikes.
Summer
When smallmouth depart the spawning sites and the water temperature hits the 70- to 80-degree range, the task of catching big bass becomes more difficult. In large bodies of water, brown bass typically move offshore to pursue baitfish. If the lake does not thermally stratify, smallies may follow open-water baitfish into depths of 35 feet or greater, creating air bladder problems should you target those fish. However, there are more reasonable options that can be a lot more fun.
Bassmaster Elite angler Paul Hirosky recommends shifting summer smallmouth fishing to nutrient-rich natural lakes where the midsummer thermocline sets up fairly shallow.
“On a 1,000-acre lake near my home in northwest Pennsylvania, the maximum depth is over 50 feet,” Hirosky says. “But when the thermocline forms, it keeps fish in the upper 25 feet. Actually, the deepest I’ve had to search for smallies in summer is around 18 to 20 feet. This makes presentations so much easier.”
Knowing that packs of big smallmouth move onto rocky points or shallow mid-lake humps during the night and remain until after the sun rises, Hirosky targets these areas with an Xcalibur Zell Pop at first light. During misty, overcast summer days, the topwater bite for exceptionally large smallmouth will continue until blue skies break through.
Also, during years of an exceptional minnow or shad hatch, huge smallmouth may remain within striking distance of surface-hugging fingerling schools the entire day. In these instances, a topwater bite might break out anytime just off a long point or mid-lake hump.
However, when the topwater bite is off, Hirosky turns to cranking. Employing a Norman DD-22 in his favorite faded shiner pattern, he lines up each cast so it bumps rock outcroppings in 12 to 15 feet of water at the end of points. Hirosky has taken his largest smallmouth ever with this technique in the middle of summer.
Minnesotan John House favors a different summer option for big smallies. He switches to the river. Current offsets many of the negatives that anglers encounter when fishing for summer smallmouth. River smallmouth cannot escape to extremely deep water, nor are warm temperatures or lack of dissolved oxygen a problem in turbulent rushing river water.
One of House’s predictable patterns on the upper Mississippi involves shell beds. On warm, calm afternoons with high sun, he finds big smallies on mussel beds with current passing over them, much like they do down on the Tennessee River lakes. His top presentation for this is a Super Spook Jr.
“On overcast days with a little breeze, big smallies move into shallow eelgrass beds in order to chase baitfish hiding in the grass,” says House. “Sub-surface twitching of a soft jerkbait is the most effective bait.”
Early Fall
As water temperatures fall from the mid-60s to the low 50s, shorter daylight periods trigger summer’s deep smallmouth to move shallow for a fall feast. Both spinnerbait and crankbait presentations are popular throughout the smallmouth belt during early fall.
Professional angler Mark Burgess eagerly looks forward to the spinnerbait bite on Northern clear-water lakes. Smallmouth in natural lakes across New England and New York show a particular affinity for bright spinnerbaits in fall.
“Waking a chartreuse-skirt/chartreuse-blade spinnerbait in the shallows absolutely drives those brown fish wild,” exclaims Burgess. “We always said it was because smallies were feeding on yellow perch at this time. But last year on Lake Champlain, I had brownies slamming my colorful Booyah spinnerbait in less than 2 feet of water, yet crayfish were the only thing those bass were eating. Go figure.”
In Michigan, Balog targets chunky smallmouth at the mouth of the Detroit River with a crankbait.
“Big smallmouth bass from Lake Erie gather on current-swept hard-bottom shoals to feed on shiners,” he says. “They position themselves along the rocky and gravel humps that rise from 25 feet to about 6 or 8 feet. A Rapala DT10 is the perfect bait to cover the key depths. Both the bluegill and shad patterns have a small amount of bright color that is a just-right trigger. It only takes a few casts on structure to discover whether the fish are there or not.”
Late Fall To Early Winter
Because bass are on the move, the mid-fall period often produces hit-and-miss activity. However, once water temperatures settle into the mid-40s, big smallies congregate in deeper water for winter.
One of the best lures at this time is a compact metal blade bait that goes down quickly and stays down near the bottom where the smallies are located. Burgess often uses a blade bait on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesauke and Squam Lake where the bass are feasting on smelt at 30 to 45 feet.
“It’s so far removed from the shallow sight-fishing I do in September and early October,” Burgess says. “Come November and December, you’ve got to have faith that the marks on the depthfinder are really smallmouth down there. One day, ripping the blade high off the bottom is the way to draw strikes. The next day, perhaps the only way to get a strike is to let the bait fall to the bottom and rest there until a smallie sucks it up. Regardless, this is consistent angling for impressive smallies until ice-up.”
Seeing that it is possible to catch bodacious bronzebacks from the earliest signs of spring to the coldest part of late fall, you now understand why smallmouth addicts find so little time to do anything but fish.
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