Freshwater
Smallmouth Bass
Where to find them, how to catch them and the tackle to use.
01Introduction
The smallmouth bass, or bronzeback, is a bronze-to-green black bass with dark vertical bars, famous for hard strikes, leaps and a stubborn fight. It lives in clear, rocky lakes and cool rivers, and from its native range in the central and eastern U.S. and Canada it has been stocked into nearly every state. Smallmouth bite all year, but prespawn spring and fall bring the best fishing for big fish.
02Where to Catch
Range: native from southern Quebec and Minnesota south to the Tennessee River in Alabama and west to eastern Oklahoma. Today it's established in almost every U.S. state; Florida and Louisiana are the notable exceptions.
Habitat: large, clear lakes (often over 100 acres and 30 feet deep) and cool, clear streams and rivers with gravel and rock bottoms.
- Lakes: rocky points, humps, ledges, gravel and sand flats and nearby weedlines. Smallmouth also suspend in open water to chase schools of baitfish like alewives.
- Rivers: current breaks formed by boulders, fallen trees, bridge pilings and ledges; eddies; tailouts; and deeper holes.
03How to Catch
Prespawn and spawn
From ice-out until they spawn, smallmouth move shallow, often into less than 10 feet of water. In cold, clear water, a suspending jerkbait fished with very long pauses (up to a minute) is hard to beat; a small, sparse hair jig crawled so slowly it almost hangs in place is another cold-water favorite. As the water warms, hop tubes and jigs along the bottom like a crayfish and work stickworms around rocks and gravel. Spawning starts as the water nears 60°F.
Summer
In lakes, smallmouth spread out. Many hold on offshore humps and points 25 to 35 feet deep, where football jigs, tubes, twister tails and blade baits work. The 12- to 25-foot range is productive on cloudy afternoons and ahead of fronts, and at dawn and dusk bass come shallow for topwaters over rocky flats. In rivers, smallmouth feed in faster water: burn a buzzbait past current breaks for reaction strikes, or drift an unweighted stickworm, a tube or a drop-shot rig naturally with the current into eddies behind rocks.
Fall
Smallmouth feed heavily before winter, and fall is a prime time for a trophy. As the water cools they switch from crayfish to baitfish. Look for steep breaks between about 10 and 20 feet: fish sit shallower on cool days and deeper on warm ones. Drag football jigs or Carolina rigs along the breaks, and on windy days cover shallow flats with spinnerbaits and bladed jigs. In rivers, fall rains push fish toward the banks and current breaks; later they settle into deeper eddies.
Winter
Winter is the toughest time. In rivers, smallmouth gather in deep, slow wintering holes where slowly worked hair jigs and tubes produce. In northern lakes they group on deep, hard-bottom wintering spots, and under the ice they act like big panfish, hitting small spoons and jigs.
Live bait
A live shiner or crayfish drifted into a deep river hole catches big smallmouth.
04Tackle
A 6½- to 7½-foot medium or medium-light spinning rod with light braid and a fluorocarbon leader (or light monofilament) handles most smallmouth fishing; use a casting rod for heavy jigs, spinnerbaits and bladed jigs. Carry tubes, hair and football jigs, stickworms, drop-shot plastics, suspending jerkbaits, crankbaits, spinnerbaits and a buzzbait or topwater. Check your state's regulations; bass seasons and size limits vary.
05Questions anglers ask
How do I tell a smallmouth from a largemouth?
Smallmouth are bronze to green with dark vertical bars rather than a dark horizontal stripe, and the upper jaw never extends past the eye.
When do smallmouth spawn?
In spring, as the water nears 60°F. Males build nests near shore in lakes or behind boulders out of the current in streams and guard the eggs and fry for up to a month.
What's the "painfully long pause" with a jerkbait?
In cold, clear water right after ice-out, In-Fisherman's editors let a suspending jerkbait sit still for up to a minute between twitches. Smallmouth often hit on the next twitch after the long pause.