BigSkyBasser

I can 2nd jerkbaits as a focus this year. Overall I'm concentrating on baits and techniques that aren't popular here because most of the bass fisherman haven't had well rounded success in tournaments so they just don't get fished. These include swimbaits, jerkbaits, vibrating jigs, and punching. The hope is that this will lead me to a new PB smallmouth as I firmly believe I spend most of my time in an area that easily is holding another state record fish (7+.)

It's about to be that time of year where a lot of us around the country are planning our annual "big" fishing trip. My spotlight this year falls on Eastern Tennessee in and around the Knoxville area as I'm planning on moving there in the future and my Fiancee has never been east of the Mississippi. Our goal is to take the last week in May and spend as much time around there and catch as many fish from shore as possible. I'm wondering if anyone knows any good ponds, or sections of river, and good lakes that would be friendly to some Montanans who've never fished water with less than 10 ft visibility. I'm not familiar with productive colors and patterns here for hard baits, jigs, soft plastics, etc (which I'm sure some guy as BPS there would know.) But any advice helps. Thanks!

It would be the least of my worries as I usually fish with braid and an 8 lb flouro leader and Medium power rod as opposed to your convention 7 Ft ML rod and 6 lb flouro. So ideally it would allow for a beefier hook set on either the drop shot or jig at that point.

That contour that sticks out of the middle on the left side of the pond should be good during pre and post spawn depending on the water temp. I'd use a jerkbait to find the smallies and then follow up with a shakeyhead or drop shot once some fish start swatting at it. Later in the year a topwater will allow you to cover most of that water and they should smack the snot out of it and tell you more about where they congregate. Have you experimented with trout colored swimbaits at all? Might be another good idea since stocked trout likely provided part of the forage and may trigger some aggressive reaction bites.

Yesterday while staring at a list of tackle for my spring order I was reading some articles and watching videos that brought a new technique to my attention. Early in the year hair/finesse jigs are clearly the way to go for cold water smallies, however some anglers also supposedly tie a drop shot 8-16 inches above said finesse jigs to maximize presentations in the water column. I'm curious what opinions exist regarding whether this defeats the purpose of fishing a jig at all or if it really is that much more effective and worth doing at any point during the year? BTW the bait monkey really seduced me and my TW order for early spring exceeded $250 mainly spent on new Jerkbaits

I've been looking at getting a thermometer to keep on me but I'm not sure how much I should invest on one or if a cheap pool thermometer would work? Thoughts?

I've looked at the Kietech baits before and they seem to have wonderful action but the softness also apparently comes with durability issues that make the price less justifiable to some. Either way I'll probably end up going this route at some point when the bait bug bites and I'm shopping.

I've recently started fishing with a chatterbait following a tournament two years ago where I used one for the first time across a grass line and pounded on em' with my boater. I seem to find success with trailers that displace as much water and thrash as violently as possible. My current go to is a Bruiser Baits super swimmer junior but I'm looking around for other options and suggestions.

I would say it's combination of information I've beaten into her from mindless repetition but also stems from her ability try things that most bass anglers wouldn't consider a conventional technique or pattern. For example one time we were fishing pre spawn on this big point that had grown grass early and we could tell there was smallies all over there but I couldn't get them to bite anything. She ties on a drop shot rig with a 1/4 oz weight and an orange Yamamoto swim senko wacky rigged (this was the dumbest looking presentation I had ever seen.) And she starts slaying them. I'm fairly certain she couldn't explain why she made this decision other than that she was wasn't bound by the information that normally would tell me to never consider trying something like this. I'm assuming this worked because these fish had been pressured by the anglers the prior weekend and had been barraged with everything you could think off, so she dropped a finesse presentation in front of them with a strange action and they didn't think twice.

I feel that your classic "gut feeling" is a combination of intuition and improvisation that some people seem to have filed down to a fine science. My fiancee seems to exhibit this much better than myself. There are certain situations that I just KNOW what do and will catch fish no matter what. However during those tough days where only a single pattern, location, or technique will pay off, she seems to find that magic touch with thinking outside the box and will figure them out for us.

I've watched some videos of Seth Feider talking about his techniques with hair jigs and tried to just slow roll them as well as jig n' pop them like a tube and neither have ever done me any real good. Caught about a 6 pound pike on one last year though haha....

I also share your affinity for negative results with the float n' fly despite it being wildly popular up here in the north country. I've even followed up with a float and senko in the exact same areas and have caught fish all day long. My plan is to try it if I'm ever bored and find a school of smallmouth that are biting anything as I also have this issue with hair jigs that I have yet to figure out how to get bit on.

The drop shot rig is absolutely dynamite during pre-spawn in Montana. I'll spend the first part of spring trying to throw swimbaits and jerkbaits to pick up those piggy females and I never seem to do great. Then I switch to drop shotting tubes along weedlines that outlet to deep water and my fiance and I slay them. We use z man tubes and dry creek tubes that float and fish them on a longer leader depending on how much the vegetation has grown in at that point. This seems to be equally effective with both smallies and largemouth.

I use the Navionics Web App for the lakes in my area that don't have paper maps available. I love this thing. http://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@6&key=wtw}GbipwT Luckily with bass they aren't able to read and archive interactions. Just because they've never seen a perch or a shad before doesn't mean that using that color won't get good reaction bites or at least force fish to reveal themselves out of interest and follow your bait. In addition there are certain super baits that work anywhere depending on water clarity that you can use without having a pattern locked down based on lake ecology. For clear water you can generally get by throwing green pumpkin, oxblood, watermelon, and other brown and green variations with decent success. In the northwest I'm often relying solely on finesse presentations such as drop shotting, ned rigs, shakey heads, and weightless baits like senkos rigged wacky or weedless. With dirty/stained water people often will go with black, blue, dark red, chartreuse, and other neon colors because of the way they stand out in the water to fish. At this point though you may want to add additional factors to help the fish find the bait such as rattles, blades, or using specific baits that thrash and displace water to cause extra vibration in the water column.

Seeing the fish as many people have mentioned will be key to determine how they react to your presence and baits in the water. However having an understanding of how these fish move around the pond during different seasons and conditions is invaluable. So when the water warms up enough (or you have a great wet suit) I'd be in the water snorkeling and trying to spot fish. This is one of my favorite things to do when I'm breaking down a new fishery because being able to picture what structure and bait is there and how fish relate to them will tell you more than anyone who's fished it ever could.

You're best bet is to find the most dramatic contour changes to identify which deep pockets are more likely to hold fish during these less active periods. River smallies during early season seem especially temperamental because of how dramatically conditions such as temperature and water level can fluctuate. Spring run off seems to shut these fish off completely here and sometimes this can last for up to 6 weeks during which I tend to ignore the rivers completely instead of painfully trying to pattern them.

There are going to be resident populations of smallmouth that stay in the rivers year round and some that move between depending on the distance between the bodies of water. Most of them in the winter will move to deep pockets and breaks on the outside bends of the river (examples are from my experience on the Clark Fork.) I have yet to have a really successful winter bite as it requires enormous amounts of patience and persistence and sometimes the bite is so subtle that you'd never know if you had any interest.

This happened last year while we were driving from one spot to another. The area we were fishing is littered with deer so you will see them all day long. My girlfriend yelled at me to stop because she thought she saw something strange with these deer like a cute fawn or something. When I backed up so I could see the clearing they were in, we see these two deer keeping close company with this turkey. At one point they were even laying down with this enormous bird as if they'd raised it from birth. We spend nearly every weekend up here and had never seen something this bizarre. Then as if nature couldn't get weirder, we pull up to this dredge pond we like fishing and I hear this strange shrieking sound coming from behind a point around the other side of the pond. We walked around to this end and found an enormous bald eagle dive bombing a great blue heron, and the heron would scream at it when it came close to it's fishing spot it had secured on a log. I regrettably couldn't find the pictures we took of the birds fighting.

I would recommend starting with your strengths regardless of what they are and trying to locate fish that way. Personally I would target the islands closer to the deeper water and search for rock piles around them in water between 15-30 ft. I'm assuming this lake has Walleye in it as well. If you can strike a conversation with some of the local walleye fishermen, as they might be willing to let you know about some of the community humps and structure around there. The smallies should be just as prone to them. https://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=en#boating/mapOptions@15&key=uxunGdg~nM

I too have micro guides and would second this statement all day. If you tie a clean knot the only difference you might notice is that you will feel the knot lightly hit your tip guide once you've reeled most all of your line in (depending on your leader size.)

I've seen what I think was a 4 lb smallie take a 9-12 inch snake off the surface before. Was shocking to say the least!

Braid is incredibly limp with very little coil memory so it spools and casts really well on a spinning reel. It's also a static fishing line which offers some minor improvement to sensitivity and doesn't stretch so you can set hooks a little easier with it as well. I recently made the switch on my shaky-head and drop shot set ups and the difference is substantial in how they fish now.

A less serious but still informational and enjoyable short read is Jimmy Houston's Caught Me a Big 'un. It has great stories about some of his experiences in the tournament scene but also applies lessons and relevant bass fundamentals throughout.

If it's a smaller river then I generally think of downsizing all of my applications accordingly. Usually fish and they're bait will grow to accomodate the size of their niche. You may find this easier by investing in a nice 6'6" spinning outfit and some light 4-6 pound test flouro. This would be much more ideal for the Ned Rig as previously mentioned as well as any other finesse techniques which would likely be more productive where you are. How troublesome do you think fishing a dropshot would be in these waters? It's my go to for smallies anywhere I fish, including stained/muddy rivers of any size.

Senkos seem to rule all on the rivers here for the vast majority of season. The versatility of a wacky rigged senko in current is incredible and call also be rigged for any other smallmouth finesse application you could think of.