Is Smallmouth Fishing Better than Ever?

 River otters, deforestation, siltation, habitat loss.

We're in an era of Indiana Smallmouth Bass fishing one where one can easily conclude things are better than ever.

In some ways, that is probably true. Angler lure ease of use is increasingly on the side of less skill to catch fish. It is not meant as an insult to good anglers out there.

• Those who have been around awhile will recognize a lot of basic, "plug and play" lures have subtle adaptations that draw more bites than ever. 

1. TRD/Big TRD is revolutionary on finessing river smallmouth any season. Almost idiot proof. Get this, it doesn't tear and the tail floats up from the bottom! Goodbye tube.
2. Whopper Ploppers taught folks if I throw it a long way from me, I'll catch big fish. 
3. Even the new premium hard jerkbaits are so much easier to use and catch fish on than 10 years ago. I learned the key to these baits on Youtube. Guess what, they were right.  

• Social media and advertising has smallmouth fishing looking more accessible than ever. I remember in the beginning being afraid of snapping turtles, so I wouldn't wade deep pools. Not kidding. You can now look up how to do something on Youtube and some great content provider will show you how to rebuild a transmission. This is awesome. I love the idea you don't have to work for the man. People are creating better history documentaries than TV does. And they get paid. Great. BUT. Are we being responsible? I am a hawk when figuring out where someone is fishing from pic and video backgrounds. People want the easy short cut to great fishing. Content providers can open up a crowd of pressure on waters and land owners that can't handle it. "Let's Go" every dink you catch?
• Confirmation bias. I am definitely catching more fish and more biggish fish because of all of the above. Therefore, there are more smallmouth than ever? Right? It is my skill and not me pounding a few good stretches or these almost 'cheat' lures. In fishing I have to constantly check my ego and take a stab at what is really true. Human's own mind will attribute to talent which one could really just attribute to the deliciousness of bacon. What if we're really just more efficient at catching the bass that are there? 
• I know the above is true for me, because my knowledge of where to go is at its near peak. Those above lures made a difference for a lot of people. While the plopper only replaces LC Splashtail 90 for me rather poorly, the Big TRD/Rerange 110/ITO Vision 110 are massive difference makers for me in the same places with different similar lures.
• I'm traveling further and further than ever to catch good bass. Rarely are there good fish near a bridge. On some streams miles and miles of missing big fish. I just go elsewhere but I don't have to like it. Winter holes are often empty now.
• I'm seeing a lot less fish or no fish in pools that used to hold them. Before we say it is just a bad day, or it filled in with sand and fish moved. I'm witnessing the same thing on entirely rocky streams. Empty holes, clear water, lack of rough fish. Miles of piles of fish scales in the form of otter pooh look very incriminating. If you're lucky enough to have a favorite stream with sandy banks, you may notice an increase in this type of footprints below. And if you have, your stream's Smallie population is in dire trouble. More to come on this in a future article as I form better thoughts. Have only started seeing otters the past couple years and only noticed scat since last year.
• More pressure on fish as Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, kayak tournies, or just tournies put pressure on fish and increase mortality.
• More new fishermen in recreational kayaks. In the last 4 years, I have had to adapt to places you couldn't kayak through. This is because the increase in kayaks has made it hard to fish unspooked fish on certain streams.

March 3-19-23 Hot Smallmouth Action

 

27 SMB - 18", 3-17.5-17.75", 4- 17, 4- 16-16.75", 4-15" On jerkbaits, all caught in the last 3 hours. Ran across fields to continue 18"er streak at 7.

March Staycation

 

18.5"

18.75"

18.75"

19.99"

18.5

19.75"

18.75"

Got out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. Total of  14 hours fished. 47 bass 2 Googs, 2 suckers

19.99", 19.75", 3-18.75", 18.5", 17.75", 17.5", 2-17", 10-15"

Numbers went 19, 17, 11, 3, largest fish caught on the 3 day,

Cray-Cray 5/17/16

Went for a long one back in mid May, temp in the 70's fishing out of this world. Lots of good ones. Plodded along in two bodies of water for diversity. 10-12 out of an eddy sometimes. No nests at all, though I expect they had plans soon with full bellies and right near the fast stuff. Threw shallow diving cranks, and the kitchen sink. Water was up and stained for the second part of wade on stream two. The big ones surprised the hell out of me. One 18" I sight fished belly deep in the middle of the river from 6' away on a tube. Saw the whole thing. First stream, was tube fish after tube fish and clearer water. Biggest came on 1/2 oz square bill.

[url=http://s11.photobucket.com/user/Bterrill/media/1_zpsfqcaf2tc.jpg.html][img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Bterrill/1_zpsfqcaf2tc.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://s11.photobucket.com/user/Bterrill/media/2_zpskchps6fz.jpg.html][img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Bterrill/2_zpskchps6fz.jpg[/img][/url]

Landed 64 total in 7 hours. 25 over 15". Euphoria.

(2-19", 18", 7-16")

8-27-22 Late Bite Turns on.

 

L

38 Smb 18.99", 18.5", 2 16". Niu also had his first 20 fish day. One almost 19" and a nice 17.5".

8-29-22 After Work Slayfest

 

42 smb in 3.5 hours

8-21-22

 

81 smb couple of 20's and a 19. Great day.

8-13-2022 Wow Smallmouth, Thanks!

 Man, what a day! Stream smallmouth populations wax and wane. Various factors, floods, poor recruitment, fish kills, habitat loss, predation by otters, eagles, and man. I've been following one vein of gold in a certain area of the state for a few years as old stand bys wane. The 18" size class has been piling up this year, but it had been nearly a year since I landed a 20" smallmouth bass. That changed Saturday as in the last month, I've been in a complete different area I've neglected for half a decade.

I set out around 930, water was cooler than I expected and slightly up from normal flow for late summer. Last week had seen a three inch rain dump, but there had been plenty of time to clear. Flats filled with bait fish were now available to hungry summer smallmouth, who frankly have been facing super high water temps this summer. Water flowed steadily through each boulder strewn riffle. Key here was not fast. I found fish at each choke point with shade, flats created by riffles.

Early caught 3 12-14"ers on a worm right in the 'faster' stuff. This showed my the beginning of the pattern that would hold all day. At one bend in the river, I hooked and tried to bulldog one huge fish, who head shook and came free. Long enough to see he was huge for what I expected. Thick and in the 19"+ range. Bummer. But I had 5 miles to go on foot and the rocky creek would be very challenging wade. 

More fish on the worm. I got confident in it to my detriment a few minutes later at the perfect push water lined with water willows and strewn with boulders. Tossing the 'weedless' worm, I hung up on a root and awkwardly balanced on softball sized rocks as I switched to my second topwater rod with a Sammy clipped on. When the lure hit the water, it was immediately annihlated. I knew it was really big. The fight was unreal, soon I was tripping on my other rod that still had the line out forward. I let it drop in the river as fear of losing the large bass gripped me. for a moment I allowed slack, this allowed the fish to get an enormous amount of steam and head for the fast riffle. As I tried to bulldog it to shore near me, the hooks pulled free. Enough to see a brilliant bass in the 20-21" range. What was going on? This river doesn't produce 2 chances like that in my experience.

So imagine self criticism, for about 5 minutes when the plunge pool became a wide, shallow, shaded flat below a riffle. Another giant blow up and lengthy fight brought this 19"er to hand:

After that, I had the mojo working, Sammy worm, worm Sammy. Stacked up and front and rear of every riffle. I was losing or missing a lot of fish on the Sammy. I would later surmise the bass were doing a lot of head shaking and the pressure + drag equation was pulling a lot of hooks loose. I didn't figure this out for 7 hours.

A shaded plunge pool produced a massive whiff, to which I saw a large fish circle to the push area behind a boulder as the pool funneled into another riffle. I switched to worm and pulled 2 fish. on the third try the large fish had circulated back and grabbed my worm. It was on. Determined not to make the same mistakes as she headed down stream, I gave slack line when she jumped, as the worm was not heavy enough to throw. This worked well. I soon had this beautiful 20"er to hand:

Seriously, I'm glad I looked elsewhere to fish, because this was exactly what I needed to break my 20"slump. Incredible action so far. I was catching fish everywhere by now, very few under 12". As I moved up to a laydown push water area, Sammy was quickly destroyed by another huge fish, a short struggle and she popped off right in a bunch of boulders and I scrambled to scoop her up. It must have been quite the sight! Incredibly, another 20" smallmouth bass. It was bizarre. I've caught a couple 20's on 5 or 6 occasions, but never have I hooked into at least 3 and maybe 4. There just aren't that many chances at that size class of fish in these streams. 

It kept up. At another laydown push water, Sammy was destroyed. Before I could pull the fish away, he had already swum a loop around the log and logged my Sammy in it. Took a break and nabbed a couple 17"'s.

There weren't any more huge fish opportunities, but I did hit 15-17" fish often the rest of the day. After 5, I hit my mid point bridge and had to rush a bit. Followed by a white dog, which happens once a year. I finally remembered to keep my rod tip down to prevent jump that were shaking loose a lot of Sammy fish. I loosed my drag a bit. 40, 50,60, 70, 80....Army cramping from fighting fish and working that Sammy.

89 smallmouth bass 5 other fish 2-20", 1-19", 4-17", 3-16", 9-15" in 10 hours 5 miles and a 3 mile bike shuttle which was sweet, sweet sweet after all that.

Staycation Pic Dump

Went on vacation 3rd week of September. Just stayed here in Indiana and fished 3 different streams. 4 days out of 7. One was a quick trip. Got 11 over 18, including a couple of 19.5" and a 20.25".

I had planned to fish every day of vacation, as it turns out flows  have really decent amount of water in them compared to most Septembers in Indiana. It made the 2 5 mile wades so tiring. A lot of river channels are flattened out, making them unfishable and very spooky water for the wader. Of course, the timber having moved, put some of these pigs totally in play to long casts with topwaters.

Smallies Last Couple Times Out