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Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the August 2005 issue of FLW Outdoors Magazine. This is Part 2 of a two-part series on smallmouth behavior, with an emphasis on suspending fish. Part 1, which appeared in the July issue of FLW Outdoors Magazine, focused on the behavior of smallmouth bass and their nature to move great distances horizontally and vertically. Part 2 details effective techniques for finding and catching suspended smallmouths. Learn more about FLW Outdoors Magazine and how to subscribe by clicking here.
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Biologists say form follows function, and with smallmouth bass, it’s certainly true. Its general shape – extremely muscular make-up, wide, powerful tail, blunt nose and vice-grip jaws – allows the smallmouth to forage in shallow water on the bottom, rooting crayfish from rocks. Yet, at the same time and just as effectively, it can swim off structure to attack and hold on to large, suspended baitfish.
As covered in our previous article, brown bass, because of environmental conditions, might not make use of suspended forage to any marked degree, but when they do, a remarkable behavioral pattern takes place – one that can confound anglers, even good ones! When smallies are rooting on the bottom for crayfish or scrounging the shallows for perch or spottail shiners, as they so often do early in the season (and all year long on some lakes), the location and presentation methodology is usually pretty straightforward.
Basically, all one needs to do is simply get on a steep drop and cast toward or parallel to a bank of some sort. Smallmouths are bold fish, and they will show themselves. Keep your eyes open, look in enough areas long enough, and eventually you’ll find them. When you do, there is a whole arsenal of angler-friendly and familiar lures like tubes, crawfish crankbaits, spider grubs, lipless crankbaits, spinners, jerkbaits and topwaters that are effective under these conditions.
Once the big brown bass start zeroing in almost exclusively on suspended forage like smelt, shad and alewives, it’s a different matter, because this is when they initiate and display dramatic up and down movements and odd feeding behavior. This odd behavior is best exemplified by their propensity to strike slow-moving, slow-dropping offerings above them, rather than strike lures at their level or beneath them.
Interestingly, our initial curiosity about suspended smallmouths came about through walleye fishing – or more to the point, by filming professional walleye tournaments – rather than actually fishing for smallies themselves.
Over the years, while following walleye pros around waters like Sturgeon Bay in Wisconsin, Lake Erie, the Missouri river reservoirs of the Dakotas and on Rainy Lake on the Canadian/Minnesota border, we witnessed various occasions where anglers trolling for suspended walleyes over deep water would encounter schools of suspended smallmouths – usually really big ones. During one event, we actually saw one boat driven off a trolling run by a ravenous hoard of brown bass.
These facts, along with our own observations of fish busting bait on the surface over deep, open water, kept pointing the finger to the suspended-mode direction. Most times, however, casting topwater lures at these surface smashes rarely resulted in anything like a pattern we could actually fish. Things started to come together, however, when we started fishing the Fort Francis Canadian Bass Championship on Rainy Lake 10 years ago. At first, we noticed that from time to time, when the person in the back of the boat would let out line and simply let a jig, worm or grub drag behind, we would get a pleasant surprise – most often a big fish.
Over the years, in building upon this system with numerous modifications, we found that by letting out a lot of line on a very, very light jighead and just dragging a 6-inch worm (usually black or white) or small, light, swimming-tail grubs would result in strikes and what we would later term “swim-bys.” A swim-by is when a suspended bass brushes against the worm with its body without actually striking it – something they do quite often.
We also noticed that every once in a while, as our boat swung over deeper water and the trailing lure hovered maybe 5 or 6 feet down over depths of 15 to 30 feet, we would catch fish when shoreline casts were drawing a blank.
In going about these exercises – mostly during practice sessions – we observed that there were times when the “back dragger” would catch almost all the fish. Then there were times the person in front of the boat, who was casting shallow, would catch most of the fish. And then there were times it was 50-50. Obviously, something was going on, and this is when our electronics came into play.
We run a mixed set of depth-finding units. In the back we use a depth-finding graph with simultaneous wide and narrow cone readings as well as a flasher unit, and up front, we run another flasher.
What became apparent was that when we encountered suspended fish strikes behind the boat, we would at times see high streaks on the graph up front and flashes moving quickly in and out on our back flasher. Most importantly, however, we would see balls of bait up high, usually suspended directly off main-lake structure like points and humps.
It should be understood here that in these tournaments, almost all 138 boats would catch the five-fish-per-day limit. Historically, over the last seven years it has taken a three-day limit of 15 fish weighing 3 pounds, 11 ounces each to win. The trick here is not just to catch fish but to isolate top-of-the-line bass. Experience has shown that this is best accomplished by zeroing in on the smelt eaters, which carry extra weight for their length.
Interestingly, in summer months you can often see big fish in shallow water, but they can be, at this time, very unresponsive. While the small fish can be triggered, these big ones at times appear to be oblivious to our offerings. Every once in a while, when you can get one of these big fish to bite, they are usually gorged with smelt. What we suspect is that these fish fed out in the deeper water but moved back to shallow water to rest and metabolize their gluttonous feasts.
It appears, day in and day out in summer when they are on a smelt diet, that it is easier to elicit a strike from the bigger fish in the open water then it is when they are on top of shallower structure. It is also our view that when they are suspended, they tend to be in a positive feeding mood, but when they are up on shallow structure, this mood might be more negative or neutral.
This is a work in progress, so we’re continually fine-tuning our approaches and theories. Nonetheless, it is our current opinion that when massive schools of baitfish can be found near areas that abut shallower rock humps and sharp drop-offs, it’s a range that intersects quite nicely with the smallies’ hunting abilities and environmental preferences. It seems that once smelt were introduced into Rainy Lake, it’s as though the big fish said goodbye to crayfish and spottail shiners. Similar scenarios exist in many areas of the Great Lakes, as well as mid-South reservoirs and big, deep lakes from east to west. This being said, we have (if conditions are right) opted to concentrate our efforts on these suspended fish over the past several years.
Working the boat with the front angler casting to shallow water while the rear angler drags became our usual search routine, and it’s here that some fine-tuning of presentation came into play.
Usually, the lead angler would be casting a suspending jerkbait or a soft-plastic jerkbait, and it’s here we began to note a strange phenomenon. From time to time, pods of three to five bass would follow these lures in – usually without striking it. At first we thought we were calling these fish from shallow structure, but by watching our electronics, we came to believe these fish were coming from deeper water. Most often the boat would be paralleling the top of a hump, the tip of a point or along a sharp drop-off.
Because of the way Rainy Lake is laid out, this depth is usually 15 to 17 feet, which is coincidently – when water levels are normal – the bottom of the break where big rocks end and the bottom begins to level out. The water in the lake in many areas is fairly clear, and with our polarized sunglasses, it appeared that these “following” fish seemed to be coming straight up, rather than following the lures as they would be if they were coming from the shallows. We would also note on our graph that we would see suspended fish, bait or both.
When we would see a bait pod on our graph with some fish around it, the front angler, if he was using a weighted jerk shad, would immediately open the bail and drop the jerk shad to the level of the fish. For example, if the boat was over 25 feet of water and a bait ball was hovering at 17 feet and a fish was spotted at 19 feet, we would drop the offering 3 to 5 feet above them. These fish – and they were usually big ones – would sometimes strike, sometimes they wouldn’t. But it obviously was always worth a try.
It was here that some additional fine-tuning came into play. We noticed that when we would stop the boat and drop lures to these target fish – as we would drift – we would start to see other signs of suspended bass, marks we didn’t see before. During one of these episodes, we made a remarkable discovery. While drifting and bobbing for one of these suspended fish 5 feet off the bottom, we had no results. As we reeled the baits straight up, however, we started getting hits 6 feet below the boat. That’s right – right under the boat! That particular day, both front and rear anglers on controlled drifts simply dropped the weighted plastic shad next to the boat approximately 5 to 6 feet below the boat and had spectacular success.
After this, we would run different kinds of set-ups. If we saw that most fish were coming by long-line back-dragging, both of us would try to do this. If the majority of fish seemed to be coming under the boat, we would both do this. Then if the action would slow or cease, we would again revert to having the forward angler cast to shallower structure and begin letting a long line out back.
Now, because of the up-and-down behavior that smallmouths display in rising off the bottom, we were constantly changing our presentation until some sort of consistent fish contact was made.
While not an iron-clad rule, most mornings it appeared that the fish tended to be closer to structure, but as the day wore on, the bass pods appeared to drift off structure and suspend more over deeper water. We refer to it as “fish going out to never-never land,” and it seemed to occur more on overcast days than on bright, sunny ones.
The timing issues
It’s vitally important to understand the timing aspects of this whole proposition. If you get it wrong, be warned that you can draw a complete blank. First off, there are seasonal timing considerations, and then there are daily deliberations.
During the third weekend of July (the time of the tournament) at the latitudes we are fishing, the major spawn of the bass will have ended a month ago – or during cool years, as little as a week ago. In fact, many of the fish, particularly the males, will still be in the shallows. However, in these waters, sometimes as much as one third of the larger female population, for whatever reason, might not have made a true spawning movement. What this means is even if great numbers of fish are spawning, those groups of the larger females might already be in a dispersal mode or, in other words, switching gears for a summer of feasting and recuperation. What we try to do in the last two or three days of practice is anticipate where the groups – moving, migrating groups – are most likely to show up on their way to a summer mode and try to intercept them. Bill Lindner likes to say, “We are not fishing the fish where they are but trying to fish them where they are going.”
These are spots, where, if you’d worked them a week earlier, you would’ve likely drawn a complete blank. The fish we catch come in two varieties – the first are fat, fed and healthy-looking fish. The second group consists of beat-up, skinny and scratchy-looking specimens. We believe the former are either fish that have completed spawning some time ago or are fish that opted not to spawn that year – indeed, some look like they are absorbing eggs, while the beat-up fish are those that just spawned and just rejoined their home group and are ready to adopt a summer pattern.
To summarize the seasonal movement aspect – as the last of the major spawn takes place, the fish regroup, usually in what we term postspawn staging areas where groups or pods of fish start moving to summer sites. These postspawn staging areas never last long and are volatile. You might catch a whole bunch of fish there one day, and the next day they are gone!
We study maps, trying to figure out and anticipate where the fish groups will most likely take up their next position, and it’s in these areas we look for lots of bait at the right levels.
More than 30 years ago, we wrote a series of articles that began to explore the suspected suspended feeding nature of walleyes – something that today is a commonly accepted fact and a standard presentation feature by anglers.
We hope that perhaps some of these early findings about smallmouths will result in the same phenomenon.
Smallmouth search strategies
See illustrations in article for details
Several strategies exist for finding and then consistently catching smallmouth bass during the postspawn period when bronzebacks can roam from main-lake structure to deep, offshore haunts chasing baitfish. As most smallmouth anglers can attest, it can often be difficult to determine the location of smallies.
On large Northern lakes, smallies can chase baitfish out into open water and suspend. Suspending fish are known to be very aggressive, but they can be difficult to find. Al and James Lindner discovered several techniques for finding suspending fish. Both strategies involve one angler fishing traditional techniques while the back angler does something completely different.
How do you catch suspended smallmouths?
If the back angler happens to catch fish while dragging a finesse rig, which happens quite often when implementing the two fishing-finding strategies illustrated on previous pages, both anglers should change techniques. Suspended smallies are typically very close to bait balls, and fish can be seen on electronics suspended around baitfish. If this scenario plays out, both anglers should drop 5-inch Jerk Shads on 1/4- or 1/2-ounce jigheads (depending on the depth of the fish) with wide-gap hooks. Do not drop the bait to the level of the fish, but drop it 5 to 7 feet deep. If the fish are a little deeper, drop the bait slightly. But keep the bait above the bait ball and suspended smallmouths – the smallies will come up and hit the lure. Also, do not jig or shake the Jerk Shad; keep it as still as possible and simply drift. This technique is sometimes refered to as “deadsticking.”
Boat position for smallies
By Ron Lindner
We were recently fishing for smallmouths when I noticed something we instinctively were doing for a long time but never really articulated on our television show or in our writings. If I were to give a tip for locating the old brown bass – a tip that is very easy to visualize and very easy to implement – it is that your boat’s position can actually help you find bass. This tip, while not 100 percent, can nonetheless save you an incredible amount of time when looking for smallmouths in the Northern lakes after the postspawn dispersal. Note: The application of this tip is on Northern natural lakes and after spawning periods – it doesn’t apply to rivers or reservoirs in other parts of North America.
We found that regardless of what depth of water you are casting to – 1 foot or 8 feet – make sure your boat is always sitting in at least 10 feet of water or, preferably, even a little deeper. A number of dynamics come into play to make this important.
After spawning periods, smallmouth bass in the majority of natural waters set up in positions that have both close access and exit to deep water. So, while indeed the fish might be sitting in very shallow rocks, deep water is usually very near – most times no more than a casting length away. Furthermore, the nature of the structural makeup on these bodies of water is such that these are places where the deep water normally cuts closest to structure. This rule of thumb actually seems to apply if you are fishing along a shoreline drop-off or an offshore hump. These sharp drop-offs allow smallies to quickly adjust depth and go from 1 to 2 feet deep to 4 to 6 feet deep very quickly without having to move a great distance horizontally. Remember, radical up and down movements are very common later in the year.
What tends to confuse many anglers is that in spring and early summer – prespawn through early postspawn – smallies can be found (usually in great numbers) way up on shallow flats and in the back ends of big, shallow bays and in timber and trees along the shore. Usually, these places can be a great distance from water that is 10-20 feet deep. So most times, your boat is in very shallow water. But come the established postspawn period, these areas are usually devoid of fish.
There are, of course, always exceptions to all rules of thumb – and that may be the case here as well – yet on most Northern natural lakes after the postspawn period is under way, this concept will most often pay big dividends.
