Does anyone have any books, videos, or other media that helps pattern smallmouth bass? I’d love to be doing more research on how to learn.

This book: Smallmouth Modern Fly Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques...is flat out the best book on the smallmouth I've ever read. Yeah, it's got a focus on fly fishing, but tactics and patterning are the same for both fly and conventional fishing.

The book is also available on Kindle, which I find very useful when I want to search for something.

The In-Fishermen books are great as well.

In-Fisherman smallmouth book is a good 1 I think

Tim Holshlag at smallmouth angler has a great one

have you read all of this thread:

Tony Bean's The Last Smallmouth. A hard copy is expensive, but it's readily available digitally.

6 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

have you read all of this thread:

Yes! thanks for the reminder. it has been a few years. I will read it over again today and tomorrow. Wonderful information from A-Jay.

Honestly, I am a book nerd, but you will find more valuable information on YouTube and this website than you will virtually any books.

The first question to your question is, pattern them where?

What climate, type of water, time of year?

Once you answer that, then you can move forward...

They like hard bottoms, they like food and they prefer to have something around that makes them feel safe... Notably, while you may look for cover on say a river Smallmouth fishery, most lakes I would look for structure... Structure that also has some form of cover like a log sticking up off the bottom or maybe huge boulders will rank higher than cover or structure on its own in most scenarios... This also holds true for rivers, but in rivers, fish don't want to work harder than they have to, so you typically need to mix a current break with cover...

Depending on available forage, depth, time of year "water temp", this will dictate the best bait to use, but personal preference can also come into play here...

All fishing is, is an itemized list to check the boxes on, if you address time of year, water temp, available forage and what you prefer to fish, then take into account the makeup of the body of water you are on, while also taking into consideration the weather pattern, you have done everything any book is going to teach you.

Not every Bass in a body of water will be eating the same thing or they may be eating multiple things, think about how many Bass you catch on topwaters that begin spitting up Crayfish in the boat, etc... so personal preference does play a role to some degree, maybe you like fishing crankbaits or maybe you prefer a jig, etc... Most of the time you can have success with both, it's all about how you prefer to approach it... You just have to approach it properly, given the conditions, if you remain within those limitations, you will likely have success...

The more you do it, the more you can develop your own pattern or series of boxes to check off so to speak, over time, the manner in which you approach each body of water you fish will change as you will learn that body of water more and more and thus your approach to that body of water will become more specialized.

Never forget, luck is a skill... :)

Them ol’ brown bass by Billy Westmoreland.

Y'all have given some good resources here for me to check out. I read through about 1/2 of A-Jay interview again last night. I haven't in awhile and it was a good reminder

There are a whole lot of books on Bass on Amazon, lot more than I ever thought there would be.

I was interested in the book that @Dwight Hottle mentioned, but it's $200 - $250 on the used market. Ouch!

If I still had it I would send it your way but it got lost somehow. The fact that Billy Westmoreland holds three places on the top 25 biggest smallmouth ever caught all time including a 10.06 & a 10.00 even plus a big nine lber is part of his infamy. You could always buy it, read it & resell it afterwards.

7 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

If I still had it I would send it your way but it got lost somehow. The fact that Billy Westmoreland holds three places on the top 25 biggest smallmouth ever caught all time including a 10.06 & a 10.00 even plus a big nine lber is part of his infamy. You could always buy it, read it & resell it afterwards.

Billy was the man

Friend of mine works at the local university Library. She is going to try to track this Them Old Brown Fish book for me. Might be able to read it for free. That would be a score.

11 hours ago, jitterbug127 said:

Friend of mine works at the local university Library. She is going to try to track this Them Old Brown Fish book for me. Might be able to read it for free. That would be a score.

Auction ends today, might be of interest to you.

eBay

Them Ol' Brown Fish: Billy Westmorland On Smallmouths Boo...

Good, solid copy of Them Ol Brown Fish by Billy Westmoreland. Only slight damage that a saw on the top of the cover, see photos. Solid binding, overall good condition. If you have any questions please

Take that down...Im the winning bidder right now 🤣

20 hours ago, jitterbug127 said:

Take that down...Im the winning bidder right now 🤣

LOL, did you win it?

2 hours ago, Peninsular said:

LOL, did you win it?

I was watching it like a hawk at work and got called away from my desk. Someone else sniped it at the last minute.

On 1/26/2026 at 12:55 PM, bowhunter63 said:

Tim Holshlag at smallmouth angler has a great one

Yes, both the fly and conventional angling books.

I had a couple books from Doug Hannon “Bass Professor “ that I used to read religiously.

The guy passed on at 66 years old, due to complications from surgery.

Time on the water is your best friend. Keep track of the good days.

I bought fly fishing book mentioned in the second post after the op. So far I really am enjoying it. Truth being told I probably know most of the information in here but it’s presenting it in a way that’s is actually applicable which is wonderful. Knowledge without ability for execution in fishing is pretty limiting in value.

On 1/26/2026 at 10:33 PM, jitterbug127 said:

Yes! thanks for the reminder. it has been a few years. I will read it over again today and tomorrow. Wonderful information from A-Jay.

After reading this thread I always get a bump in my catches.

Great advice

One thing about SMB here near my house, they unfortunately don’t follow patters. You’ll hear all the pros say it over and over when the bassmaster tour comes here, the word random is thrown around very often

On 2/8/2026 at 3:39 PM, jitterbug127 said:

I bought fly fishing book mentioned in the second post after the op. So far I really am enjoying it. Truth being told I probably know most of the information in here but it’s presenting it in a way that’s is actually applicable which is wonderful. Knowledge without ability for execution in fishing is pretty limiting in value.

Reading this book through slower a second time....Post above is WRONG! I thought i knew this stuff. Not even close. The Smallmouth Modern Fly Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques is phenomenal. It talks about the exact type of fishing i like to do. I am going to have a fun season trying to apply this knowledge in 2026. Thank for the recommendation.