Friday, August 14, 2009

Still think smallmouth eat small?

Got a chance to help USGS biologists electrofish recently. Learned a lot of cool things:



This 17-18" bass was shocked up from a rootwad. It had a 9-10" northern hogsucker half swallowed.

3 comments:

  1. I've noticed that the size of baits has correlated highly with the size of fish this month. The topwater bite has picked up for both smallies and spots, and I've been using this big obnoxious buzzbait as well as a tiny mini-buzz. I haven't caught many on my big buzzbait, but they have been around 16 and 17 inches, including the fattest 16" spotted bass I've seen. My mini-buzz has been a real fish catcher, but usually for 10"-14" bass.

    The smallies I caught were huge in March, but since then several fish around 17" have been the largest, though Tim Smith caught one about 19" when I fished with him.


    One thing I wonder about is why everyone seems to use such tiny plastic worms for smallmouths. My best plastic bait in summer months has been a 7" curly tailed worm.

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  2. As you can see Jeff, my biggest fish have been coming dead drifting topwater that float and have a taile feather. Buzzbaits have been off. I have maybe 10 fish on them this year. I usually catch a few hundred on them.

    We have a lot of nutrients in our waters here this year. I think it may be somehow involved.

    I don't use plastic worms. Can't say. Other than finesse worms are different bait. There are times a 3" senko is all a bass will take- from what I've heard.

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