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Small Mouth Bass Fishing Super Tips

Bass (Small & Largemouth), Florida Fishing Articles, Freshwater Fishing Articles, Regional Fishing, United States Fishing Articles |

Small mouth bass fishing usually begins in spring as soon as the water temperature hits 60 degrees. For two weeks the Mother Bass is a busy female. She builds her nest near the water’s banks, spawns and guards her babies from the hordes of pan fish and other predators.

Soon, with the children grown and out of the house, Mother Bass heads for cool, deeper waters to kick back and chill. She shows little interest in feeding or searching for food. This only serves to make small bass fishing more delightfully complicated for the vacationing fisherman. It becomes a challenge to read the river or lake and find the bass.

It’s no wonder that small bass fishermen need all of the tips they can get.

What does the small mouth bass prefer?

Unlike largemouth bass, which often hit a stationary or slow-moving bug, the smallmouth bass prefers a somewhat faster-moving bug, es¬pecially when fishing rivers. Here, because of the moving current, the fish have to make up their minds fast and move quickly. So you can work your bass bug by popping it steadily with only short pauses every so often.

When fishing for smallmouth bass in a river, it is vital to discover where they are lying. When working a good-size pool, you can start at the head where the pool begins and work downstream toward the tail, casting at various angles and working various depths until all the water is probed. Once you get a hit or catch a fish, keep working that spot, because you can often catch more than one fish there.

Best bait for small mouth fishing

During the hot summer months, smallmouth bass go deep, and one of the best baits to use at this time is a live frog fished near the bottom.

One of the most effective surface lures for smallmouth bass is a tiny-plug with a propeller at the rear. This can be worked with plenty of erratic rod action to simulate a crippled minnow.

There are times when smallmouth bass will take a dry fly and pro¬vide great sport on a fly rod. This usually happens when they are feed¬ing on a hatch of flies or such insects as grasshoppers.

When fishing the smaller, shallower rivers for smallmouth bass, more caution is needed than when fishing larger rivers or deeper lakes. In the smaller streams, wade upstream and cast into likely spots. Move and fish slowly and quietly so that you don’t frighten the bass.

A good lure for smallmouth bass when they are in rocky or weedy areas feeding on crayfish is a twin spinner in a black finish with a green pork frog added to the hook. This is cast as far as possible and is allowed to sink to the bottom and reeled very slowly, bouncing bottom all the way in. Evening, sunrise, and night are best for this fishing, since that is when crayfish are most active and bass come looking for them.

If you like fly fishing for smallmouth bass, try a streamer or bucktail in your favorite stream, river, or lake, especially in the late afternoon and evening. Try to imitate the local baitfish with your fly pattern.

You can also try a wet fly and just let it sink in a lake without any rod action. Smallmouth bass will often hit such a wet fly as it is slowly sinking.

A jig can be worked slowly along the bottom to imitate a crayfish. Jigs dressed with brown, green, or black hair are best.

A good way to use a spoon for smallmouth bass over a sandy bottom is to cast it out and let it sink until it lies on the sand. Then raise and bounce it along the bottom so that it stirs up the sand.

More small mouth bass fishing tips and tricks
When smallmouth bass are feeding on hatching mayflies in a river, they can be located by looking for rings formed on the water by rising fish. Then you should cast your fly just above the ring so that it floats into it.

When using surface plugs or bass bugs in a lake for smallmouth bass, work them more gently than for largemouth bass. The small mouths respond better to ripples, wakes, and tiny splashes than to loud pops or big splashes.

A key time to fish a river for smallmouth bass is right after a thunder¬storm, which dirties the water along the shore but leaves the midstream section clear. At such times, cast your lure or bait into the clear stretches.

If you see a bass following your surface plug when it is being retrieved at a moderate or fast speed but refusing to hit it, try stopping the lure so that it floats without moving. The fish may hit then or when the plug starts moving again.

One effective technique when working a jig is to let it sink and rest on the bottom as long as 30 seconds. Then raise it off the bottom and let it drop back again. When fishing for bass in the late fall-October or November-con¬centrate on the deeper holes and drop-offs, where the water is from 15 to 30 ft. deep. During a cold front in Florida, black bass will head for the deeper canals and holes. But they will return to the shallows after the cold front passes and the weather warms up again.

When smallmouth bass are feeding on hatching mayflies in a river, they can be located by looking for rings formed on the water by rising fish. Then you should cast your fly just above the ring so that it floats into it. When using surface plugs or bass bugs in a lake for smallmouth bass, work them more gently than for largemouth bass. The small mouths respond better to ripples, wakes, and tiny splashes than to loud pops or big splashes.

Small mouth bass fishing is one of the most popular sports in America since they are found in any number of rivers, streams and lakes. The small mouth bass puts up more of a fight than other bass which also contributes to this challenging but satisfying sport.

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