It's all about the bait

The following is an article by Stephen Headrick, The smallmouth guru, Bassmaster.com

It's all about the bait


Here in the dead of winter you have to really be on your game to have a great smallmouth trip. In the spring, almost anyone can catch them. They're hungry and aggressive and more vulnerable than any other time of the year. In the fall, they can be like that, too.
Come summer, I like to go out at night and work a hair jig around deep grass beds. Catching smallies then can be challenging, but nothing like the winter. In the winter, tough fishing is expected.


One of the keys to catching smallmouth in winter is finding the bait and doing the best possible job of imitating it. Since crawfish hibernate in the winter, I don't try to emulate them at this time of year. Instead, I do what I can to imitate a baitfish. Just what kind of baitfish you want to imitate depends on the body of water you're fishing and the bait available there.

Another key is to find a way to present that baitfish imitation slowly enough to match the metabolism of winter baitfish and bass. That generally means one of two techniques — the float and fly (which suspends a small hair jig beneath a float so you can move it as slowly as possible) and the suspending jerkbait or crankbait (which can be stopped and will hold in place for long periods of time).


You need to a use a lure that won't plummet to the bottom when you're not moving it. The limiting factor with the float and fly and suspending hard baits is how deep you can get them.
A jigging spoon or blade bait could work — and you can get them much deeper — but you'll have to fish them vertically. They're great choices for when you've pinpointed the bass, but poor search baits.


It's an old truism that if you can find the bait, you've found the bass. That's as accurate in the winter as at any other time. Baitfish can be patterned just like bass and will respond predictably to weather changes.


In the winter, if there's been a warm rain, you'll find the baitfish in the backs of creeks that are dumping warm water into the lake. If the rain was a cold one, they'll be out in the main lake where temperatures are more stable. After a few warm, sunny days, you can expect the baitfish to move up shallower where the water warms more quickly. Look for them on your electronics. Typically, they'll be deeper after a front and near the main lake. Find the lure that best imitates them and that you can fish slowly, and you should be in the action.


Until next time, if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Please e-mail me at Stephen@thesmallmouthguru.com.

For further articles by this experienced guru, go to http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/index

What lure to throw?

The following article is by Stephen Headrick, The Smallmouth Guru, courtesy of Bassmaster.com

5 Simple Questions

Since I started doing this column for Bassmaster.com, I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking some very interesting questions. Some of the questions are so thought provoking that I've turned them into columns. Others have been expecting a little too much from me.

For example, I've had several folks ask me what lures I'd throw if I was fishing this lake or that lake. The odds are pretty good that I've never even seen that body of water, much less fished it. So, rather than try to tell you what lure you ought to be throwing, I'm going to give you a list of five questions you should ask yourself every time you go fishing or think about lure selection.

1. What time of year is it? Think in terms of "bass seasons" — prespawn, spawn, postspawn, summer, fall and winter. How bass behave and where you'll find them depends more on this than anything else. As a result, it has a great deal to do with what lure you'll want to be using.

2. What is the water temperature? Since bass are cold-blooded, they're basically the same temperature as the water. Temperature will dictate whether you can use a fast moving spinnerbait or must stick with a slow moving jig. It also tells me what retrieve speed I can use.

3. What is the water color? Water color will help me decide on a lure color. I go with natural colors (most of the time) if it's clear, and I go with bright colors or black when it's dirty. I also look at light conditions and use the same guidelines.

4. Is there any wind? Conditions might be otherwise ideal for fishing a light jig, but if the wind is howling at 40 mph, there's no way I can feel it. I'll need to change to a heavier bait and probably one that can be effectively fished on a fast retrieve. Most of the time, of course, the wind isn't a determining factor, but when it blows you have to think about it.

5. What is the available forage? Most often, I want to mimic the same food that the bass are eating. If they're targeting shad, I want to use something that looks like a shad. If they want crawfish, I'll probably throw a dark jig or crankbait. I want my lure to fit into their environment and look like food.

If you can answer these five questions, you can go a long way to figuring out just what you should be fishing with and why. Until next time, if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Please e-mail me at Stephen@thesmallmouthguru.com.