Smallmouth Bass Fishing

Everybody loves to fish for smallmouth in the spring when the bronze bombers are patrolling the shallows exploding on top waters, smashing jerk baits and gulping grubs swimming through the flats. But when the summer sun warms the shallows and the smallmouth retreat to their deep water haunts, many anglers resort to chasing ugly green bass or simply quit fishing.

Since most smallmouth in clear lakes spend most of their time in deep water, smallmouth season for many anglers lasts only a few weeks. However just because smallmouth go deep doesn’t mean they can’t be caught. No matter whether they are shallow or deep fish have got to eat, and if they eat they are catch-able. You just have to know how.

One of the most effective deep-water techniques is drop shotting. What we know as drop shotting today began in Japan for fishing deep, clear, heavily pressured lakes for largemouth. It found its way across the Pacific to California where it gained popularity for catching both largemouth and spotted bass in the clear, heavily fished lakes of the Golden State. As the technique moved east astute deep-water anglers quickly discovered it is as effective for smallmouth as it is for both green and spotted bass. On my home water, Lake Powell, it is simply the best method for consistently catching deep-water smallies.

Gearing Up

The drop shot setup is very simple. First tie a hook on your line leaving a long tag end - usually 12 to 24 inches depending on how far off the bottom you want to work your lure. On the end of the line attach a sinker. Rig your favorite soft plastic bait on your hook and you’re ready to go. A number of companies offer special drop shot weights. These have wire loops that are crimped at the top. Slide your line through the loop and then cinch it up into the crimped area. There is no need to tie a knot. If the sinker gets hung in the rocks it will break off easily. You’ll lose the sinker but normally you’ll save your hook and lure. Simply re-rig with another sinker and you’re back in action. I use ¼ oz. weights for most of my drop shotting. With this weight I can fish quite effectively down to 40 plus feet in calm weather. If I need to go much below 40 or if I need to get deep in windy conditions I might opt for a 3/8 oz. weight, however the ¼ oz. size seems to do the job most of the time.

The ideal hook for drop shotting depends on where you fish. Lake Powell, like many good smallmouth waters, has very little brushy cover so it is possible to fish with an open hook. I believe the best hooks for drop shotting in waters where brush is not an issue are circle hooks. My favorite is the split shot hook marketed by Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits. The #3 size seems to work best for smallmouth fishing. All the major hook manufacturers market similar hooks and most work quite well for this application. The beauty of this hook is two-fold. First, you don’t set the hook. The fish hooks itself. When you feel the fish simply begin reeling while gently sweeping your rod to fighting position. Second, you rarely gut hook a fish even if it swallows the bait. Most of the time the hook works its way back up through the gullet until it grabs into the hard tissue on the roof or corner if the fish’s mouth. In my 47 years of fishing I’ve never used a finer hook.

Although circle hook and other open style hooks can be fished in lakes with moderate cover if fished totally vertical, once you’re line gets some angle to it you’re likely to get hung. When fishing in cover it might be necessary to rig weedless. Light wire offset worm hooks work best for this application.

As for rods and reels, most anglers use spinning tackle for their drop shotting. Contrary to popular opinion you don’t need one of the special drop shot rods being marketed by several rod manufacturers. These rods are being marketed to catch fishermen rather than fish. Any decent graphite spinning rod in the 6-0 to 6-6 range capable of fishing light to medium weight jigs is perfectly fine for drop shotting. I use a 6-0 medium action Bass Pro Bionic Blade which I believe is an ideal drop shot rod. A fast retrieve reel is highly desirable for this method as it is sometimes necessary to retrieve a lot of line quickly when a hooked smallmouth is tearing for the surface. Whatever reel you choose must have a smooth drag since drop shotting generally calls for lighter weight lines. A jerky drag will often mean a lost fish.

Speaking of lines, most folks use six to eight-pound-test monofilament. I personally don’t like standard monofilament as it has too much stretch and not enough sensitivity for my taste. I like fluorocarbon for its low stretch and virtual invisibility in clear water, however fluorocarbon is difficult to handle on spinning tackle as a main line and is very susceptible to line twist that commonly occurs while drop shotting. I’ve settled on 10-pound-test Berkley Fireline as my main line with six-pound-test Stren fluorocarbon for the leader. Fireline handles well on spinning reels and doesn’t seem to have the problems associated with line twist. Stren fluorocarbon has good knot strength and abrasion resistance. If you must use standard monofilament I suggest using a low visibility green colored line for clear water applications.

Drop shotting is done almost entirely with soft plastic baits. My favorite drop shot lure is the Yamamoto Senko. While not designed specifically as a drop shot lure, the cigar-shaped Senko has a natural little wiggle that just drives smallies crazy. I generally prefer the slim models in three and four-inch lengths for smallmouth as these tend to have a bit more natural action than the standard sized models. I also think smallmouth prefer their smaller profile. When fishing vertical I like to wacky rig my Senkos. Wacky rigging is hooking the lure right through the middle leaving both ends free to dangle. It is an incredibly nature presentation that is very effective.

Other good drop shot baits for smallmouth are small finesse worms, grubs and tubes and leach imitations. Although not talked about very much, drop shotting is an excellent way to present live bait such as minnows, crawlers and leaches.

Probably the most important piece of equipment is not your rod, reel or lure. It is your depth finder. Catching smallmouth consistently in deep water is nearly impossible without a decent graph. Not only is it important to be able to get a picture of the structure you’re fishing, it’s important to see the fish. If fish are not showing on the graph in an area where they should be, they may be hunkered down on the bottom rooting for crayfish rather than up looking for shad. In these situations a jig or worm crawled on the bottom might be more effective than drop shotting. When fish appear up off the bottom then drop shotting should be effective.

It is also a great advantage to be able to see your bait on the graph as it drops. This is particularly important when fish are suspended way up off the bottom over very deep water. In these situations it is absolutely imperative that you’re not fishing too shallow or too deep, so knowing where your lure is in relation to the fish is very important. A drop shot rig will appear as a double line on a depth finder - the first line being made by the sinker and the second by the lure. There is nothing more fun than watching a lure drop to the fish on the depth finder screen, engaging the reel and having your rod immediately bend over double. Although it’s possible to be successful drop shotting without a depth finder, a decent graph makes it much easier.

Locations

No matter what technique you use you simply won’t catch deep-water smallmouth if you can’t locate them. This is a much easier job for folks in the East and Midwest where the water levels lakes and reservoirs don’t really fluctuate that much and the fish tend to stay in the same locations. Once a good spot is found you can go back to it time after time and be successful. Out here in the West where it’s not unusual for lakes to fluctuate 100 vertical feet in a year it’s often necessary to find new areas every time out. That reef that was a good producer in June may be 30 feet out of the water by October. Because the prolonged Western drought continues to shrink Lake Powell, I’ve had to find all new areas the past couple seasons. My top smallmouth producing areas just two or three years ago are now 90 feet above the lake surface. A good general knowledge of smallmouth habitat and a good depth finder are invaluable tools when having to locate new fishing areas.

The key thing to remember in locating deep-water smallies is that they tend to congregate around steep drop offs. They like to be able to move up to shallow feeding areas and return to their deep-water hangouts without having to travel too far. Broken rock structure is better than smooth or slick rock except for when they suspend up against vertical bluffs and canyon walls.

I think the biggest mistake most anglers make when searching for deep-water smallmouth is they don’t fish deep enough. On Lake Powell I’ve caught smallmouth in as deep as 70 feet of water and regularly fish the 30 to 40-foot range. In trying to determine the right depth it is important to know where the thermocline is. The thermocline is a band of cool oxygenated water, usually around 65 degrees, that separates the warm upper layer of water from the cold and stagnant lower layer. On most clear water lakes this will be 30 to 35 feet but that can vary. The thermocline is often visible on a sensitive depth finder. If you can’t determine the thermocline depth a good place to start is at 25 feet and work deeper until you find the fish. Again, smallmouth like to hang around steep drop offs so by working these types of structures it is possible to fish a wide range of depths without moving the boat very far.

Another thing to remember is smallmouth tend to relate to edges. The steep drop offs described earlier are one type of edge. The thermocline is another. Other examples would be the edge of a shade or mud line. In warm weather smallmouth will seek out both shade and mud lines, however they tend to stay close to the edges of these lines rather than way back under them. Another edge is the transition zone between bottom types, i.e. where slick rock meets chunk rock; chunk rock meets pea gravel and where pea gravel meets sand. These transition areas will often draw smallmouth particularly in the spring prior to the spawn. Smallmouth with use these transition zones as migration routes from their staging areas to spawning areas. In trying to find the best areas I look for places where two or three of these edges intersect. When I find that type of area I can often sit on one spot and take several nice fish.

Another deep water pattern that can be fished effectively by drop shotting are when smallmouth suspend at say 20 or 30 feet over 60 to 100 feet of water. While this can happen out in open water in some areas it more likely happens up against vertical bluffs and canyon walls. This often happens in fall when smallmouth retire to deep water after chasing shad in shallow coves and cuts.

Drop Shot Techniques

I think the best way to describe drop shotting is it’s live bait fishing with artificials. It is the ultimate “do-nothing” technique. The real work is in locating the fish. The actual fishing techniques are very simple. I think where people get in trouble with drop shotting is they try to do a lot more than they really need to do.

The most common drop shot technique is to simply drop the lure vertically right below the boat. A drop off at the end of a point would be a classic location for this. If the fish are close to the bottom then you want to drop all the way down and then take out the slack so that the lure is hanging on the line directly above the sinker. You should be able to feel the sinker come off of and hit the bottom as you raise and lower your rod tip. If the fish are well up off the bottom then you’d only want to drop to where they are. It’s better to be above the fish than below them as fish that are off the bottom typically look upwards for their prey. I believe most folks put way too much action on their lures. Just a simple vibration is all that’s necessary in most situations.

Another thing I like to do is make short pitch casts parallel to the structure I’m fishing such as a canyon wall, edge of a reef or rock face and let the lure sort of pendulum back towards the boat on a slack line. Be sure to watch the line closely. If it stops, jumps or starts peeling off faster than it should, engage the reel. When working along broken rock faces, particularly those with overhangs, a strike could come at any time as smallmouth will situate in much shallower water on these types of structures if they can find protective overhead cover.

When the bass are really aggressive most of the hits will come on the initial drop. When working this type of bite I seldom leave my lure down near the bottom more than a few seconds as I want to cover as much water and get my bait in front of any many fish as possible. However when the smallmouths’ mood is neutral or negative, as it often is on those bluebird days after a cold front, it is often necessary to keep the lure down in front of them for several minutes before they’ll hit. This is slow, tedious fishing that takes a lot of patience, but the reward is often a nice sack of fish on days when no one else is catching anything.

That’s really all there is to it. They key is actually locating the fish. Once located the actually fishing methods are really quite simple. Anyone can do it.

So if deep-water smallies are giving you the blues, give drop shotting a try. Once you learn to locate deep-holding bronzebacks you will be amazed at how effective this simple method really is. It will put smallmouth in the boat when nothing else will.

By: Ed Gerdemann, Originally Published: November 2004

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