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| Smallmouth Bass Fishing |
Question:
Anybody out there fish for the Wiley smallmouth? Not that you should jeopardize your trout fishing but be careful it may be habit forming.
Answer:
I tried fishing for smallmouth on the lower Russian in Central California.
Threw streamers, dries, nymphs to almost no avail. The one 4-incher I caught convinced me that everything that's been said about their fighting natures is true.
Generally, when feeding actively smallmouths hit almost anything (and don’t mind sideways drag). When they are not feeding actively you need either:
1 -- To sink a big streamer down to their level (at least 4 ft. deep in sunny weather) and within a yard laterally,
2 -- Or else provoke them to chasing on the surface, by a popper or other bug. You then get more strikes than hookups, and usually smaller fish, but it can be a lot of fun.
Trout-style drag-free drift of natural-sized nymphs seems not to produce (on the Ottawa River, Ontario, generally good for bass.)
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