Summer Smorgasbord
River Smallmouth Eat it up
River summers offer gamefish a
plethora of forage to pounce on from many structural angles. It’s impossible to
find a single pattern that would really exclude all other fishing possibilities;
fish will strike from all sorts of positions, especially smallmouth bass. Lures
and approaches can vary, or you can select a single method and do well with
that. Smallmouths are willing feeders all day, if the lunkers, especially in
low, clear water, are aloof and more aggressive early and late.
Insects fallen from trees and blown
into the river; insect larvae; leeches and worms; crayfish (especially small
and molting); and a whole host of baitfish, including shiners, chubs, dace,
smaller fallfish and suckers, darters, madtoms, fingerling channel cats and
bullheads, panfish, all are forage for smallmouths, so a wide range of lures proves effective. Most anglers use light or medium-power spinning outfits, although quite a few use baitcasting gear, while others flyfish nymphs,
wet flies, streamers, poppers, even dry flies. Until September, when shad and
herring fry head downriver on my home Delaware River, lure choices are limited
only to imagination. Once two-inch fry rich in Omega 3 make themselves
available, the bass tend to feed on nothing else, so enjoy summer variety while
it lasts.
Lures imitate forage and get where
bass hold, some lures effective for many situations. It’s easily possible, for
example, to float trip the Delaware all day using only a four or five-inch
Senko style plastic worm rigged Wacky on a plain shank #2 Mustad, or an eighth-ounce jighead dressed with a three-inch Berkeley Gulp! Leech. Either will apply
to all sorts of structure, from rapids to holes nearly 20 feet deep drawing
strikes all day. Senkos are great for casting distance, sink fast and deep
without added weight, can be retrieved when rigged Wacky at a moderate,
pulsating clip through fast water, and nine-inch smallmouths will rush them in
shallows to make distended efforts at swallowing the total length of the worm. Three-inch Berkeley
leeches are a light touch by comparison, but possibly more effective.
What I like to do—most of the time—is
try to beat the odds by using a wide array of lures, interchangeable by small
snap, not snap swivel unless I opt for an in-line spinner. And otherwise I tie
jigs and hooks for Senkos directly to the line. Something rubs me wrong about
throwing a rubbery Senko into rapids. If a minnow imitation plug is not really more
effective in fast water, at least I like to think it is, and my confidence in
the lure certainly counts for something.
Just the same, a fast, deep sluice
between a set of huge boulders with more boulders on the bottom releasing
boils to the surface just begs for a crankbait to course down, ricocheting off
the tops of rocks, digging in sand beside those obstructions, pausing to snap a
smallmouth to attention, then tearing off on its way provoking the bass rush
and engulf it.
Don’t believe it! It’s not all about
food. For us to think the bass just like to eat is awkward because our eating
habits get wrongly associated with the life
of bass. We eat with manners—bass play their own energies. They don’t rocket to
a swimming plug because they desire the taste
of meat that much. Forage and predator alike are sporting. They have no concept
of sport, but they feel it, and the feeling of life is what it’s all about for
them. That's why they like Omega 3 in the fall, gives them energy and health.
An eighth-ounce jig may be
effective in the same spots plugs work, but you can knock on bass’s doors with a
jig—tap it on top of a rock, then let it tumble off the edge to drop by the
window, the open space of the crevice where a bass stalks. By such a sensitive
approach you will never wield power as you will with a crankbait. When free
floating a canoe or raft, or power boat drifting and steering electrically, a
crankbait gives you more control as you cover more area. But fishing fast is
not the only way. And covering water is relative—which I’ve never encountered
anyone else think or write about. A crankbait obviously seems to “cover” more
water, but not if bass are hiding in
the rocks. Bass under rocks will never see a crankbait plough through. A bass
will feel it slam into the rock it is underneath, but that will be all. The bass
is in recess and will not rush out and take chase. What is "covering water" if
the place where the bass lie is not respected? Quite literally—a light jig
that subtly falls in full view, illuminated by sunlight right at the crevice
opening, and then waits for the bass with Leech moved by current, is covering
water that a crankbait cannot.
Nothing beats getting out on the
river just before a cool dawn, with steam devils whirling off the surface
funneling 90 feet up and informing you that the water temperature is down a
little closer to what is optimal for smallmouth bass. Now’s the time to be
quiet. You can hear a bass take a baitfish from the surface 200 yards or more
away. Until the sun gets over the ridge, smallmouths move into shallow flat
areas with loads of baitfish, especially among aquatic vegetation common to
these areas. On very rare occasions—pickerel are probably at least as rare as
muskies on the Delaware—teeth will threaten your surface lure. More likely a largemouth will
engulf it, but not as likely as will a smallmouth, because they're not nearly as common, and during this magic hour
topwater plugs prove especially vulnerable to big ones.
Don’t be afraid to put some muscle
into your approach. A quarter-ounce plug isn’t too loud. Consider lunker smallmouths’ needs. While the
average one-pounder picks and pecks all day,
even at trout-size edibles, a big smallmouth over two pounds, possibly four, needs to consume more each day (and night) than do bass half or a quarter their size. A four-pound bass does not
likely maintain its mass solely by eating stonefly nymphs. Toss a Heddon Plunker, Heddon Baby Torpedo, Rebel Pop-R, or any popper or bladed topwater to coax out strikes. Never fish routinely.
Nature is spontaneous, erratic, and ultimately unpredictable. We think of it as lawful and orderly, but this implies only what we know of it and we will never be close to omniscient. Or you could say that chaos is order too subtle for immediate mental reflection to recognize. A lot more is going on in a river than you recognize, so fine-tuning senses and fishing subtly may bring results. The point of fishing is to beat the odds. So count on original moves to get a fish to strike—break retrieve cadences, especially by feeling your own natural responses.
even at trout-size edibles, a big smallmouth over two pounds, possibly four, needs to consume more each day (and night) than do bass half or a quarter their size. A four-pound bass does not
likely maintain its mass solely by eating stonefly nymphs. Toss a Heddon Plunker, Heddon Baby Torpedo, Rebel Pop-R, or any popper or bladed topwater to coax out strikes. Never fish routinely.
Nature is spontaneous, erratic, and ultimately unpredictable. We think of it as lawful and orderly, but this implies only what we know of it and we will never be close to omniscient. Or you could say that chaos is order too subtle for immediate mental reflection to recognize. A lot more is going on in a river than you recognize, so fine-tuning senses and fishing subtly may bring results. The point of fishing is to beat the odds. So count on original moves to get a fish to strike—break retrieve cadences, especially by feeling your own natural responses.
With sun rays beaming through
treetops, in-line spinners become especially effective. Blades with prismatic reflective tape do
wonders to sun rays, but the old standbys of silver or gold still catch fish. A
straight, moderately fast retrieve through faster water broken up by boulders
or rocks is best. With spinners, to pause the lure—as is effective with plugs
and spinnerbaits next to an ambush point—is to defeat the purpose of what these
lures do. They imitate a healthy, if overly determined and outstanding
(especially with prismatic tape) baitfish. To pause a spinner is to kill the sustained,
mesmerizing effect. It’s mesmerizing for us, and bass at least don’t mind. On
the other hand, pausing a spinnerbait may be the best way to draw a strike since
the blades, swivel mounted, just shift into upward position and turn and
flutter as the jig body carries the lure down. A twister grub instead of a
skirt is obviously effective this way. An eighth-ounce spinnerbait
with smaller-size Colorado blades may be fished a lot like a jig in boulder
strewn channels, also allowing for effective blade vibrations and steady
retrieves.
And speaking of jigs, tubes are an
old standby, but forever deadly. Effective in winter with water temperatures in
the 30’s by allowing the plastic tentacles to pulsate in slow current as the
jig remains motionless on bottom, summer certainly allows you increased
tempo—tube jigs especially draw strikes on the drop, or possibly soon after
they hit bottom (and pulsate). So with an eighth or possibly quarter-ounce jighead, you can drop it on and next to likely lairs, work it off the
bottom a few times, reel it in and try another target.
All other plastics—swim baits,
twister grubs, Shad Rap type realistic imitations, etc., are effective choices
that can make the day interesting and possibly turn a catch to your favor. But
never rely on a lure itself ahead of how you use it. Reading water and timing
(not staying too long or short in a spot or area) always prove more important than lure
choice. If you can read water, you can judge at least fairly accurately what
lure to use and have an idea of how to place it, though lure choice will be more a matter of personal preference than you might think. You may think of a better lure
while fishing a spot, even try three or four or more, but most important—find
fish. To cast a lure where no fish exist is certainly to catch nothing.
These lures and approaches—besides
flies—require only a 5 ½-foot, medium power, fast action rod. A six-foot or
even longer will cast further, but accuracy on a river is important. The shorter, not
too short, rods have tips closer to your wrist. Stick with six-pound test monofilament and you’ll enjoy all the
casting distance you need.
