Seeking Big Stream Smallmouth

[Al Agnew]

A recent post asking for lures to catch the bigger smallmouth in Ozark streams got me thinking a bit. As I said in the other thread, there is a lot more to catching really nice smallmouth, which I consider those over 17 inches, from Ozark streams that just the lures you use. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject...I hope others might have things to add.

Streams--if everything else was equal, the bigger the stream is (as long as it's still decent smallmouth habitat), the more likely it is to grow lots of big fish. However, all other things AREN'T equal. The bigger streams, those big enough for rampant jetboat use including tournaments are so heavily pressured these days that I believe the population of fish over 17 inches is depressed in them in relation to their potential, and the fish that are left are sophisticated enough that catching them is far from easy. 30 years ago, it was a rare day when I DIDN'T catch at least one fish over 18 inches every time I floated the middle and lower Meramec. Now, there are still big fish to be found, but they come much less frequently.

Smaller streams that are still big enough for canoe floating seem to be a bit better bet these days. Of course, the canoe hatch on the popular rivers will make fishing tougher, even though most canoe floaters don't fish. Just the commotion tends to put the fish down. However, there are good numbers of big fish in many of the popular canoeing streams; you just have to fish them when the hordes aren't on them. The less popular streams tend to be a little better yet, especially once you get a mile or so away from the accesses.

The smaller creeks, those that are marginally floatable at best and more likely wading streams, are hit and miss. Some are excellent. Some have otter problems. Some have greedy meat angler problems. Some have habitat problems. You won't really know until you try them.

Times: Weekdays are simply going to be better than weekends on most streams. If you have to fish from Friday through Sunday, try to do it early and late.

But time of day during the week has much less significance. Don't hesitate to fish hard during the middle of the day on lightly pressured rivers.

Time of year makes a difference. If you really know what you're doing, you'll catch the highest percentage of big fish as part of your total catch from November through March--I'm assuming here that you know the season is closed in Missouri in March, April, and May, so any fish you catch then MUST be released immediately. Spring can be hit or miss, depending on water levels and the degree of spawning activity the fish are in. Summer, from about mid-June to mid-September, is the second best time to catch big ones because the water is usually low and stable and the fish are more predictable. Fall, from mid-September to late October, can be very tough, due to exceptionally clear water, lots of floating leaves, and lots of bright sunny days.

But bright sun isn't necessarily a bad thing when the water is warm or cold, it only seems to affect the fish a lot in the transition period of fall.

Tackle: To catch big smallies consistently, you have to be able to reach them. The floating or boating angler has some advantage over the wader in that they can reach ALL the good water on a stretch of stream, and cover more water in a day. But if it's a stream that is easily wade-able, the wader has some advantage in that it's easier to cover the water you CAN reach thoroughly and carefully if you're wading. However, I believe that wading the gravel-bottomed streams of the Ozarks is noisy, and the crunching of gravel may alert big fish to your presence, so I like to use a canoe even on streams that are only marginally floatable, and get out of the canoe only when absolutely necessary.

I won't go into which watercraft is best here. All I will say is that, whichever watercraft you use, one of the most important factors in catching big smallies is handling and positioning that craft to fish each spot most effectively. Here is one place where there is a huge difference between the consistently successful angler and the guy who can't figure out why he can't catch anything over 13 inches. You have to really pay attention to how you handle your watercraft, know how to slow and stop it in strong current, know how to approach good spots, and be meticulous in your boat control. Most floating anglers never fish some of the best water because they are too busy negotiating it in their watercraft. So whichever craft you prefer, learn to use it efficiently.

As far as rods and reels, the most important thing here, like that of handling your craft, is being able to use them efficiently. You can get by with relatively inexpensive rods and reels as long as the reel works smoothly and the set-up is the right action and power to handle your chosen lures well. But there are some definite choices you should avoid...

NO ULTRALIGHT! Three reasons. One, ultralight spinning tackle will not handle the size of lures you should be using efficiently. If you want to catch lots and lots of sunfish and goggle-eye and 10 inch smallies and maybe once in a great while a good fish, you should be using the lures that ultralight is designed to cast. But if you want to catch bigger fish consistently, and spend a lot less time unhooking dinky sunfish (time that is better spent making another cast for a big one), then use tackle that will handle lures big enough to interest bigger fish, and be able to set the hooks in the tough mouth of a big smallie.

Two, your margin for error with ultralight is a lot thinner. Big fish often live in nasty places, and they know how to use rocks and logs and water willow to escape a hook. Yes, you can land the biggest smallie swimming in the Ozarks on 4 pound test line...IF you know what you're doing, everything goes right, and the fish can't reach anything to wrap your line around and snap you off. But I'd rather be able to pull that fish away from the logjam if necessary, and I don't want to take the chance of breaking it off and leaving a faceful of hooks in it.

Three, I believe that the necessity of playing a big fish for a long time on very light tackle may make its survival after release less likely.

The flyfisherman CAN catch big fish. But using a fly rod from a canoe or kayak isn't easy. If you're a very experienced flyfisherman, fine. If you're still learning, use it wading but don't expect to use it well from a canoe or kayak.

If you are still using spincast tackle, consider switching to spinning and baitcasting. I don't know of any spincast reel that retrieves line fast enough to be really efficient at the kind of fishing you need to do to catch big fish consistently. More about that later.

So, use spinning rods that are no lighter than medium light power. Medium is usually better. If you are practiced at using baitcasting, it is more efficient than spinning for some of the lures and techniques you need to use. Medium light and medium power rods will be about as heavy as you need to go with the baitcasting. 8 pound test mono, or braided lines up to 20 pound test, are enough power for your line.

Lures: To me, there are two main classes of lures, those you fish fast and those you fish slow. Topwater lures, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits (including soft jerkbaits like Superflukes) are fast lures...you fish them either high in the water column or crank them in pretty fast. Jigs, tubes, and other soft plastics usually fished on or near the bottom are slow lures. With fast lures, the premium is on making lots of QUALITY casts to all conceivable spots that might hold a big fish. I find that baitcasting is the most efficient tackle for fishing fast lures...it's easier to make accurate casts and it's ergonomically better in that you have fewer movements to make the cast. If you use spinning tackle, however, you can get good enough to be plenty efficient with it. But I've never yet fished with anyone who used spinning tackle that could match me in the number of accurate casts I make in a day's fishing.

With slow lures, the premium is on being able to hold your watercraft in position to fish a good spot thoroughly, and in KNOWING what your lure is doing as you move it (or don't move it), reading the currents that move it, and detecting soft bites. For this, I find spinning tackle to work better, especially with braided line. Others may not.

Many river smallmouth anglers tend to focus on one or two lures. I don't know how many guys I've heard and seen say that "I don't use anything but (fill in the blank--usually some soft plastic)". If you do so, you'll have good days, the occasional great day, and days when you don't do well at all. To take advantage of whatever conditions you encounter, you need to be proficient with several CLASSES of lures. You don't need a whole lot of baits, but you need baits that cover the entire water column, fast and slow.

Basically, I use three types of topwater lures. The buzzbait covers a lot of water easily and fast. The walk-the-dog topwater is totally different and can be worked fast or fairly slow. The Pop-R type topwater is usually fished medium to slow.

I use two types of spinnerbaits. My homemade twin-spin is usually fished fast. A regular safety pin type spinnerbait, either single or tandem blade, I usually fish a lot slower.

I two types of crankbaits. My homemade shallow runner is usually fished fast, and stays near the surface. I fish it in heavy cover. A deep runner that will go 7 or more feet deep can be fished fast or slow.

I use jerkbaits like the Lucky Craft Pointer mostly during the transition periods in spring and fall, but it can be fished medium to slow.

I use Superflukes in warmer water, usually fish them fast and shallow.

There are a plethora of soft plastics and bottom bumping lures on the market. I've tried most of them at one time or another, and have never found one type to be much better than any other, so I decided to keep it simple. For fishing slow and on the bottom, I use the jig and plastic chunk, tubes, and finesse worms. That's all. I simply vary the size depending upon water conditions.

Lure colors? Here are some simple rules of thumb. Rough imitations of what the smallies feed upon usually work, which means colors that look like minnows and colors that look like crawdads or other bottom organisms. If I'm fishing something like tubes on the bottom in clear water, my first color choice is to pick a color that most closely matches the bottom of the stream. Some streams have bright, clean gravel so a brown to almost orange color will match the bottom. Other streams have more algae-covered bottoms, and a more olive color is better. If it's murky, black is always good. But on lures that run higher in the water, I want colors that blend with the water surface in clear water, which means white, silver, and especially chartreuse. If there are two colors that are as close to universal magic on Ozark streams, they are brown and chartreuse.

So if you look at my lure selection, you'll see a lot of pearl, silver, white, black, chartreuse, brown, and olive. Personally, I don't like orange bellies on crankbaits, I don't think fire-tiger is necessary, I don't like bright green, blue and purple aren't necessary either. Again, other people might have different experiences.

Finally, big smallmouth spots and how to fish them...

Big smallmouths like current, except in the winter. Those big, dead pools you find in most Ozark streams are pretty much a waste of time to fish. I often paddle through them in the summer. And big smallmouths like cover. They especially like cover that they can get UNDER. Big slick logs in moving water are great. Undercut rocks are excellent. The water doesn't have to be deep as long as the fish have someplace they can hide. They won't always BE hiding. In fact, you're most likely to catch the big ones when they are active, and when they're active they will be where their food is. There simply isn't a lot of smallmouth food in deep water. I'd guess that nearly every big smallie I've ever caught in warm weather came from water that was 6 feet deep or less. It might have been CLOSE to deeper water, maybe right on the edge of deeper water. But those deep, green pools that just seem to shout "huge fish here" seldom actually produce big fish. If the fish is there, it probably isn't feeding.

So, some places are "optimum". Smooth strong current 3-6 feet deep with logs, rocks, even chunks of clay that have collapsed off cut-banks, is optimum. If the spot has more than one kind of cover it's even better. If it has water willow weeds along the edge that's a plus. If it's a rocky bank, bigger rocks along it, rocky points, drop-offs with current sweeping across them, are "spots on the spot" that are most likely to hold the fish. If it's a bank with logs, if it's a big slick log that's been in the water a long time, it's good. If it's a log the fish can easily get under, with current sweeping along it, it's better. If it's a big log that's perpendicular to the current or at least lying at an angle to the current, with current sweeping under it, it might be the best of all.

On heavily pressured streams, some of the best spots are not obvious. Anglers fish all the obvious spots. A small pocket of deeper, slower water along the margin of a fast riffle. An opening in back of a log jam. An eddy on what looks like the shallow side at the bottom of a riffle. A sunken log lying right where your canoe has to go when you get to the bottom of the riffle, hard to see because of choppy water. A pool with moving water and rocks along one side, but at some point the current swings to the other side where there is a log or two...the "off-bank" that nobody bothers to go over and fish. The log on the "off-side" at the bottom of a pool where the current starts to pick up. An abrupt rise right at the top of a riffle. Even a seemingly featureless run of medium depth water with no cover that doesn't look like there's anything to attract fish, but happens to have one spot where there is a pocket of water a foot or so deeper.

Thing is, you can cherry pick the obviously great spots, and spend all your time pounding them unmercifully with the bottom bumpers, and catch some big fish. Or you can fish fast, and make at least one good cast to EVERY POSSIBLE spot that could conceivably hold a big one. Both approaches work. But if you fish from a canoe or kayak, the second one is a little easier to do. I tend to fish fast in warm weather, with occasional stops in exceptional spots to fish them slowly and thoroughly. If that works, then I do more of it. If it doesn't...if it's one of those days when nothing seems to be working, I tend to keep fishing fast with lures I have complete confidence in, seeking the one active fish or waiting for the fish to turn on, rather than trying to force-feed the inactive fish.

Whew! I'm tired of typing. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the "secrets" of catching big Ozark river smallmouth.

[RSBreth]

I don't have much else to add besides saying... awesome post.

Fish where others don't bother, or can't get to easily.

BE QUIET.

Hit everything you can with a cast or two with a couple of different type of lures until you see whats working that day (or hour).

Use good sized lures, not the dinky panfish stuff.

Highly active, aggressive Smallmouth can refuse finesse tactics. Sometimes, especially in warmer water, you drop a soft plastic or jig right beside them and they don't even look at it, but then run a crank or buzzbait in the same spot and get chased by 5 Smallmouths all trying to kill it. It happens.

That's about it.

It's not rocket science, but sometimes I think you might need to see it for yourself in person.

I do have my own style, but I'm proud to say I stole about half of the basic template from Al.

The other half is from Bassmaster-type "patterning" of fish.

O.K., maybe another half from In-Fisherman.

That's right, I know 150% about Smallmouths.

[Flysmallie]

Great post Al. I had never thought about actually spooking the fish by getting out and wading. I always stop when I find a good looking spot and try to wade most of it. Probably because I don't want to deal with boat control. I don't suck at it, I just find it easier to wade. Of course my "solo" canoe is also a 17ft tandem. Gonna have to try to do something different this weekend I guess.

I agree with RS on agressive fish not always taking a slow moving lure. You probably do have to witness it to believe it but it does happen.

I may not now 150% about catching smallmouth but I know I'm at least 150% into it.

[Guest]

deleted

[smallmouthjoe]

I'm really trying to get away from the slow baits this summer. It's really hard, I always feel like I'm passing fish by. Next trip I take I need to just leave my tubes and jigs behind and focus on trying to learn to catch fish with aggressive baits, then maybe i can build some confidence in them.

Great post, thank you Al.

[et84]

Wow. I don't think there's anything in that post that you didn't cover. I like the point you make about wading in gravel-bottom streams spooking fish. Makes sense- reminds me of wading Crane Creek. Now I guess I know why I get skunked sometimes!!! The only thing I would like to add is..... USE CRAWS!! I'm not partial to any brand/ color/ style or anything like that, but for me craws are my go-to bait for stream smallies around here. We just catch a couple craws as we fish so we can see what color/ size is most plentiful. Then we buy our plastics to match.... not rocket science, just my take on the subject.

[hank franklin]

I think the key is identifying the big fish spots, identifying the best way to reach them with your cast, then executing your cast and assuring your lure is in the zone as long as possible. Sounds simple but the thing that makes me a better angler today compared to 10 years ago is reading the water and IDing the likely big fish spots. As Al says, it's not always obvious.

IDing the spot is only step one however. Step two is getting into position not only to make the cast, but also to land the fish if he hits. Step three then is actually making the cast and hitting the spot. Step four is presenting the lure as optimally as possible. If you've executed all this perfectly then chances are the fish will hit.

Most all of my big fish of recent years came this way: ID the spot, get in position, make the cast and boom, connect. Occasionally a big fish will "come out of nowhere" but in most instances they are the result of thorough targeting and execution.

Sounds simple but on moving water while float fishing often you get only one quality shot at any one quality spot. If you don't get in position, miss with your cast, don't hold the lure in the zone long enough, etc. your best shot is gone. You can often recoup and pull a smaller one out of there but in my experience the big ones usually come first.

Great post and great topic Al.

[Ämp]

I only have 3 words ... Wild eye Shad

[Flysmallie]

I only have 3 words ... Wild eye Shad

Good looking bait. You gonna tell us your favorite color and size????

[Guest]

3/8oz finesse jig (orange/brown) with a green pumpkin or blue twin tail grub as the trailer.

I use it to pitch into "slick logs" and yo yo in the current for bigger smallies.

Swimming this bait can actually take the place of a topwater or crankbait, when covering the upper water column.

Most people overlook swimming a jig.

I agree, really aggressive bass will not bite a motionless bottom bait.

They will however, attack a fast moving bait.

Swimming a jig came to me by accident.

One rainy summer day, I noticed the bass wouldn't bite that jig on the bottom(where 90% of bass anglers fish them)

They would chase it when I was reeling it in rather quickly to make another cast.

The light bulb went off.

I expanded this approach: cast and wind the jig in open runs with little or no cover, swim it across and around logjams, toss it into patches of water willow and pop it free.

Try this next time out.

You might be surprised at what comes chasing past your bait.