I wanted to start a thread to focus primarily on "Deep" fishing with emphasis on Smith Mountain Lake.  I watched 18lbs with a 5.92 Big Fish win the FOM tournament at SML on Saturday this past weekend and heard a lot about deep structure being the winning factor.  The tournament had about 35 to 40 teams.  Only 2 teams did not weigh a single fish.  There was the winning 18lb sack, 1x 15lb sack, a 12lb sack and some various 10lb sacks.  Other than that there were various teams that weighed a couple of 1,2 and 3 fish sacks.  I think i counted somewhere around 82 fish or so total.  I talked with a few people and they said they were catching fish all throughout the day.  Water temperature was between 79 and 82 degrees.  This tells me that the fish can be caught on this lake or any other lake for that matter in these conditions. 

 

My question is more about how to fish deep water structure/change, and how to use your electronics to find that structure.  Whether it is docks, points or brush piles, what is really considered deep here?  I have one friends that says all he fishes is deep water docks after the sun has moved high and the fish pull in to them for shade/cover.  I have another friend that says he fishes humps and points with some kind of structure on them in the evening when they decide to feed.  It's obvious that fish will obviously come to both locations, but how to fish them is also my concern.  With the fish in our area currently either still in their summer patterns or beginning to transition with the shad to some of the feeder creeks and more shallower areas and then winter right around the corner , I want to focus on fishing "deep".

 

Here are a few questions to kick off the thread:

 

1.  How deep is deep?

      a.) I understand that that it's relative to area and the specific body of water.  Obviously the fish in a 13' pond can't dig out the bottom of the lake to get to 50' like that of some of the areas in SML.

2.  Once you find a stump or brushpile with your electronics, how do you know that once you transition to your downimaging or regular sonar on the front of the boat that you are over it ?

3.  Once you are over it, how do you get your dropshot/jig/spoon/??? down to that brush pile?

4.  Points seem to really have me confused.  I know how to identify a point, but some run out shallower for longer than others and some have deeper water on the sides than others etc... and so on.  How do you fish a point? Where do you position your boat?  If your throwing a Carolina Rig do you fish it from shallow to deep, deep to shallow, parrallel to point, perpendicular to point? 

     a.)  I'd like to be able to develop a plan to systematically pick apart a point and/or it's structure and then know when to move on to another point.

5.  If you scan a point/dock/brush pile with your electronics and you do not see evidence of bait fish or fish in general, do you try to fish it anyways or do you move on until you see fish holding to the structure?

 

I don't want to just go out on the water and put fish in my boat because I could repeat what i saw someone do last week in a tournament.  I want to understand why my lure enticed a strike based upon conditions of that current time.  I know that this is for sure something that takes years and years of practice and all I can say is that I hope so because I plan on doing this for years and years to come.  I hope that I haven't pushed this forum past the point of it's intent as I just wanted to start an imformative thread that may help any and all that happen upon it.  Thanks in advanced for the replies.

Not sure if I can be of any use as there aren't SM around my parts and I'm not sure the differences in how LM and SM relate to cover and structure. That said, go to the "best of Bassresource" thread and read some of the posts there on structure fishing. Also some good articles on the homepage. Adapt these to Small mouth and you're good to go. Also you may want to ask the mods to move this to the Smallmouth Bass fishing forum. You won't get as much lake-specific advice but you will probably get more replies, and therefore more advice. Any general advice given can be easily transferred to your specific lake.

 

Brian

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure how to contact a MOD so hopefully one will see this and move it where it needs to be.  Thanks again.

     I think with SML the water is so vast that it can have several patterns on any particular day.There is always a dock pattern or at least somebody fishing it but I think that the deeper fish patterns are usually where you'll find the bigger bags this time of year. The guys that do the best in tournaments are the guys with established patterns before the tournaments start. Pre-fish,pre-fish,pre-fish.I know its not always possible but the guys that win on this lake stay on it and on top of the game.

         Spend time and scout, idle over points,channel swings,bluff walls etc.I get my butt handed to me on this lake and so do alot of other guys but its usually lack of preparation not technique. I have friends who love the C-rig and drag it all summer and do pretty well with it.I like to soak a jig,deep or shallow .I know of a guy who is really good at getting right on top of them and knocks them in the head with a spoon or a silver buddy and have seen some huge bags from this guy.Hope this helps a little,good luck.