Saw The Guru On The Water Today

[KCRIVERRAT]

Hellgramites? Or whatever else lives under the small rocks in the streams. We've all seen plenty of crawdads spit up and that's their primary food when they can get it. I'd like to know what they eat in the winter... besides an occasional nightcrawler that makes their eyes bug out during winter. Same with the trout.

[ozark trout fisher]

Hellgramites? Or whatever else lives under the small rocks in the streams. We've all seen plenty of crawdads spit up and that's their primary food when they can get it. I'd like to know what they eat in the winter... besides an occasional nightcrawler that makes their eyes bug out during winter. Same with the trout.

I've always kinda thought they ate minnows during the winter, just because that's about the only food item still in the water at that time. Also, there metabolism is so low I don't think they need to feed much if at all. Could be wrong about all this, just theorizing.

[eric1978]

Yep, minnows. Lotsa minnows...and other baitfish.

[laker67]

Well I'm certainly no Al or Nick, but in the winter time, when they move into the trout parks, I catch them consistantly on #12 grey or tan sowbugs. I also catch alot of google eye on the same flies. I sight fish for them just like the trout. Granted, larger lures will catch larger smallmouth, but 2 to 3 pound smallmouth are a challenge on 7x. The suzy hole and the beach hole, at bssp, are easily sight fished in the winter.

[ohmz138]

Well I'm certainly no Al or Nick, but in the winter time, when they move into the trout parks, I catch them consistantly on #12 grey or tan sowbugs. I also catch alot of google eye on the same flies. I sight fish for them just like the trout. Granted, larger lures will catch larger smallmouth, but 2 to 3 pound smallmouth are a challenge on 7x. The suzy hole and the beach hole, at bssp, are easily sight fished in the winter.

Thanks for sharing Laker. The smallmouth on sowbugs is interesting.

[FishinCricket]

Well I'm certainly no Al or Nick, but in the winter time, when they move into the trout parks, I catch them consistantly on #12 grey or tan sowbugs. I also catch alot of google eye on the same flies. I sight fish for them just like the trout. Granted, larger lures will catch larger smallmouth, but 2 to 3 pound smallmouth are a challenge on 7x. The suzy hole and the beach hole, at bssp, are easily sight fished in the winter.

Sssssssssssshhhhhhhh! There ain't no danged smallies or goggleyes in the spring during the winter! None whatsoever! The Suzy hole is a wasteland all winter, not even worth venturing into..

And certainly no big monster smallies at the mouth of the spring... Feeding on minnows, and crawdads. And fat pink headed jigs.. Err, I mean black ad chartreuse beetlespins...

:wink:

[laker67]

Sssssssssssshhhhhhhh! There ain't no danged smallies or goggleyes in the spring during the winter! None whatsoever! The Suzy hole is a wasteland all winter, not even worth venturing into..

And certainly no big monster smallies at the mouth of the spring... Feeding on minnows, and crawdads. And fat pink headed jigs.. Err, I mean black ad chartreuse beetlespins...

:wink:

It's ok FC. OHMZ138 won't tell a soul.

[FishinCricket]

It's ok FC. OHMZ138 won't tell a soul.

Thanks, I feel better now.. lol

so, um.. Yup. Nothing to see here folks, move along.. Move along..

[Al Agnew]

I too would think the gravel in the stomach is simply extraneous material picked up while eating crayfish and other bottom organisms. If you ever watch a good sized smallmouth pick a crawdad off the bottom, the suction when they take it is very strong and violent, and it is easy to see that they could easily suck up a lot of extra material, some of which would find its way into their stomach. Probably the smaller the critter is that they are eating, the more likely it would be to engulf more than just the critter.

They don't always take something this way, however. With my homemade crankbait, which has a skirt on the belly hook, even good sized smallies often take ONLY the skirt. A long time ago I watched some video of largemouth striking regular crankbaits when the baits were running above them. They often swam up under the bait and very delicately snapped the swinging belly treble. I believe that for some reason, something hanging off the belly actually is an attraction, and adding some extra attraction to it makes it better.

There are still a lot of mysteries about winter smallmouth. For instance, while on some streams it is possible to find some pretty large concentrations of fish in the winter, it still doesn't seem like we are finding ALL the fish that are there in the summer. In warm weather, bass are widespread over the stream and there are a lot of them, especially smaller fish. You never seem to find the same number of fish, and especially those smaller ones, in the winter.

And on some streams, finding any fish at all in the winter is difficult. On upper Big River, where I know there are excellent numbers of smallies in the summer, I've never figured out how to find and catch them consistently in the winter. In one seven mile float where 50 to 75 fish days are pretty common for me in the summer, the number of decent wintering pools is fairly limited, so you'd think that all those fish would gravitate into those few good pools. But the pools always seem to have one little school of fish each, maybe a half dozen or so, and that's it. And sometimes they seem completely devoid of bass. I've floated this river a lot when it is extremely clear and you can see nearly all the bottom in the winter, and the fish simply aren't visible at all. I now believe that on a lot of smaller, clearer, less spring fed streams, the smallmouth simply find places where they can get completely out of sight under big log jams, overhanging banks, big boulders, and they almost hibernate and almost never come out and get active during the day.

But on larger and somewhat murkier streams like the Meramec and Gasconade, or in places where they have a thermal refuge (a good sized spring), SOME of the fish seem to stay more active in the winter. Maybe some don't. Maybe...there are differences in individual fish, that make some stay more active in cold water. Maybe the bigger fishes' metabolism allows them to stay more active. Maybe smallies that stay somewhat active in the winter eat more and grow bigger than those who don't.

It is also a bit of a mystery just what they do eat during the winter. Food is a lot scarcer then, especially bottom organisms. Minnows and other baitfish probably make up a lot larger proportion of their diet in cold water.

Still, a bass is always a bass. To the angler, I don't really think it matters much what the bass are eating, because if they are active, their predatory instinct will make them take lures that look alive and vulnerable. It's just that what looks vulnerable in the winter is different from what looks vulnerable in the summer. While they CAN move fairly fast in cold water, they don't really want to. Nor do they want to come up into shallow water, or high in the water column, where they can be seen easily. I think that security becomes an over-riding concern in winter-time bass. They seem to instinctively know that they are slower and more vulnerable to predators, so they tend to stay in water deep enough that they can't easily be seen--or if the water is really clear, they stay on the bottom up against and under cover.

[FishinCricket]

Al, I do believe that's the detailed insight that solus was looking for.. Good stuff, man...