Smallmouths prefer cool water, but will tend to follow food sources. The smallmouth bass is sensitive to environmental factors, and can be greatly affected by polluted waters. Clean rivers and lakes are essential to smallmouth survival. Smallmouths will move from one habitat to another as temperature changes throughout the year.

Rivers
Smallmouths prefer rock strewn, gravelly, hard bottoms. You generally won't find smallmouths in areas with soft sandy or muddy bottoms. River smallmouths will hangout in shallow rocky pools and ledges during the cooler spring weather. You will also find them on grass beds nad weedy patches growing on small islands and along the banks, especially as the growth attracts forage. As the water heats up, they will tend to move to the deeper pools in the rivers main channel, or to the faster moving parts of the riffles that offer cooler water.

Lakes
In lakes, smallmouths generally move to deeper water as the water warms up. They hold around structure and shade. They can be found along sunken bars, submerged islands, off of points, and along drop offs an ledges. They can be found in deeper grass and weed beds, where forage and cover is available.

Spawning
Smallmouths prefer to spawn in water tempatures in the 62 to 65 degrees range. They can usually be found spawning sometime between April and June. They will spawn in depths of 2 to 10 feet. The male cleans debris from a small circular area to create the nest. The male then guards the nest for about a month after spawning to allow the fry to grow to swim freely.