you have found the perfect summer smallmouth location.
Another key for me in the summer is grass. Unlike largemouth, smallmouth will not often bury deep in grass, but instead they will use grasslines as underwater highways as they search for food.
SUMMER TECHNIQUES
Early in the morning, I will fish the insides of grasslines and on shallow flats with a topwater bait that I can quickly work on the top until I locate smallmouth. This is a time of year when they group up and locating one usually means you will catch more. As the sun rises, I will switch to the outside of the grasslines and also begin to fish deep points and offshore humps, rockpiles and deep bridge pilings with a drop-shot rig almost exclusively.
If you can find current from a flowing river or even if it is formed by wind, this is a location to count on for summer smallmouth. A top summertime bait for me is a spinnerbait like the Eco Pro Tungsten Rapid Fire since it has a smaller
profile but doesn’t affect how far I can cast it since it is made of tungsten. A white/chartreuse skirt combination is well-suited to catch smallmouth anywhere.
EARLY FALL
The early fall, like summer can be a time to catch many fish on topwater. I like to focus on those same summer haunts but then move shallower as early fall bass are beginning to feel the cooler water temperatures and the only thing on their mind is feeding.
My ideal early fall locations are flats with close access to deeper water. These flats will usually have grass from the summer warmth and also yearling baitfish and bass from the spawn in the spring. I approach the early fall like summer, but instead speed up my retrieve and try to cover more water. Depending on the water temperature, early fall smallmouth will act like summer smallmouth later in the day and begin to return to some of the same locations as they are in the summer.
SUMMER 2015
25
http://optimumbaits.com/