Largemouth vs Smallmouth

[gimruis]

3 hours ago, Bankc said:

On my lakes, it's largemouth by a mile.  There aren't nearly as many smallmouth bass

 

Same here.  The majority of lakes here are shallow natural lakes with a lot of weeds/vegetation growth that support largemouth.

 

The only ones that have smallmouth here are the bigger, deeper, clearer lakes, and rivers that have more hard bottom substrate.

 

Its rare that I catch both on the same outing.  Its happened before, but its been many years.

[bowhunter63]

28 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@bowhunter63, run that one by me again……

 

River smallies where I’m at share water with drum crappie catfish largemouth spots sturgeon carp bream white bass striper trout walleye and a few hundred other things 

Well they do here too. But what I really meant but didn’t clarify was if I’m catching Smallmouth, Spots share their water But Lm are usually some where else. But yea we have crappies bluegills cats and all the good ones 

[king fisher]

When I lived in WA smallmouth were far easier to catch because I fished for them in small streams and I fished in lakes for largemouth.  Small streams concentrate fish in small easy to find places.  Now that I live in Mexico, largemouth are easier because, I would have to travel hundreds of miles to catch a small mouth. I do believe Florida strain largemouth are far more difficult to catch than northern strain largemouth.

[TnRiver46]

I have seen some smallmouth on the internet near the TX/mexico border . 

[detroit1]

The natural lakes i fish, less than 500 acres, clear, 20 - 90 ft. deep, are mostly lm, but some sm too. Funny thing is i catch lm 10 to 1 over sm , but usually my biggest of the year is a sm.

[geo g]

Going to college in Ohio and fishing a bunch of lakes around the college, and then fishing the Sandusky area of lake Erie, I have caught many smallmouth, large mouth, walleye, pike, and even one muskie.   After college 50 years of fishing south Florida in a boat from Okeechobee to the Everglades.  I enjoy catching anything that swims.  But since the 80's and the introduction of Peacocks by the State Wildlife Biologists.  There is nothing like hooking in to a decent size Pea.  You know immediately you have something special on the line.  The closest thing I can compare it too is a Snook.  You have lighting fast runs with changes of direction, Insane repeated leaps out of the water, and a never give up attitude even when pulled out of the water and in your control.  The best thing is they are most active on bright sunny days, when the weather is blistering hot, and largemouth are often hard to catch.  Peas love warm water even in the 90's.  Also you can't fish fast enough with big noise top water baits, spooks, jerk baits, rattletraps, to name a few.   Peacocks have often saved a slow day of bass fishing especially in those nasty summer days.  In the heat they will wear you out chugging big top water baits.  There is just nothing like catching Peacocks they are truly beautiful, with a pitbull attitude.  If you have a chance to do it, you will never forget it!

[softwateronly]

My lake is closer to what @gimruis is dealing with, clear water, heavy vegetation down to 20-25', but no rock or wood and the structure bowls out significantly at any depth below 25 fow.  We do have a decent smallmouth population, but the lake is chuck full of LM so they are easier to fish for by far because of their preference for shallower cover.  I never target SM on this water, but usually catch a few from the same spot when I run into them.

 

Ran into a fellow fisherman on the water over the weekend and he's been fishing the lake 35yrs compared to my 15, and we spent some time chatting about the changes the last few years.  The gizzard shad population has exploded over the last 5-7 years and that has radically changed the bass behavior.  I suspected this, but between my learning curve and lack of sophisticated electronics, it was nice to get confirmation from others.  I'm gearing up to spend a much larger portion of my daylight fishing in open water and hope to run into more SM as a result.

 

scott

[TOXIC]

When we go to St Clair in May the target is smallmouth.  Lots of em and bigguns.  Largemouth, Goggleye, Pike Musky, White bass, etc., are all by catches.  We may make a day for Walleye.  At home here in Virginia on the upper Rappahonock River, Largemouth are the target and Smallmouth, snakehead, catfish and panfish are all afterthoughts.  

[CutNRun]

Smallmouth are the hardest to catch for me because there's only largemouth where I fish.  I can catch Roanoake Bass near me, but there's no smallmouth.

 

Jim

[33oldtimer]

Don't Smallmouth often hunt in packs? They don't play around, they hit the lure hard.

[The Baron]

I don’t have Livescope, so suspended smallmouth are hard to find.  On a mixed fishery, I’ll start on smallmouth in the early morning.  They’ll usually hit topwater, or a small Keitech/underspin type presentation.  I might then try to catch a few on a dropshot.  But for me, smallmouth are either on or off.  I’ll do much better on smallmouth in the fall, usually.  But I’ve learned that if the smallmouth are not really on, my best plan is move on the largemouth.  
 

That’s based on only being able to fish from late June (season opener) to end of October (gets too cold for me).

[Gera]

I taught it was going to be SMB vs LMB on a fight to death.. 

 

my money on SMB.. 

 

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, The Baron said:

I don’t have Livescope, so suspended smallmouth are hard to find.  On a mixed fishery, I’ll start on smallmouth in the early morning.  They’ll usually hit topwater, or a small Keitech/underspin type presentation.  I might then try to catch a few on a dropshot.  But for me, smallmouth are either on or off.  I’ll do much better on smallmouth in the fall, usually.  But I’ve learned that if the smallmouth are not really on, my best plan is move on the largemouth.  
 

That’s based on only being able to fish from late June (season opener) to end of October (gets too cold for me).

You don’t need the livescope, just keep the lure off the bottom and they will find it. Pendulum the bait down to a desired depth then kind of feather it up above that a little. 
 

I have always dragged my baits on bottom , which does still work very well, but after seeing how people get fish to chase their baits on YouTube footage of the front looker, I’ve been fishing a lot closer to the surface in deep water and it’s effective 

[MIbassyaker]

I fish mostly weedy natural lakes with good LM populations and few, if any, Smallmouth; or river sections with lots of smallmouth, and just a few largemouth here and there.  While i sometimes catch them both in the same areas on the same water, most often it's one or the other. 

 

I find smallmouth hard to target in lakes and I rarely catch them in that kind of environment.  I have a much easier time finding them in rivers and they're usually super aggressive.