Smallmouth Bass - Early Cranking
The first smallmouth bass fishing trips of the season see subtle baits and downsized expectations. When the water hits the 40's in the North country, the hunt is on! There is a more bold way to land smallmouth bass...MAKE SOME NOISE! Like fly fishing, there are basically 2 ways to do it: Match the hatch, or be outrageous. Now by outrageous we mean not subtle. There is nothing sublime about a crankbait slamming into rocks and digging up sand! There is one problem, aren't bass slower in the spring? Here's the solution. THE BAIT To slow the bait and keep it in the strike zone longer, use deeper running lures. If you are fishing in 10 feet, you should use a crankbait that dives to 16 feet. So in Rapala terms a DT16 (“dives-to 16 feet”) will dive quickly and strike bottom within a few turns of the reel in 10 feet of water. This will get you banging bottom sooner, which will call the smallmouth right away and let them commit. Early season smallmouth bass need the bait in the strike zone much longer than in the warm water period. A top water lure can call smallies from 10 feet down during the summer, but spring is a different story. Suspending jerkbaits must be paused and placed within a few feet of smallmouth bass in cold water. But slow doesn't need to be quiet. Bass are gathering their energy for the spawn and aren't going to waste energy chasing things around. If they can see and hear the lure coming, they can decide to commit before it passes them by. This is when the deep crankbait will produce strikes. The Technique The deeper crankbait can be fished painfully slow because it is always in contact with bottom. Start with a long cast and crank it down as soon as it hits the water. When it starts to dig in, you can stop and start at will and it will stay just inches from bottom. A good way to control it is pull with the rod for about a foot, pause to reel up the slack, and pull again. The THUD..THUD..THUD is letting the smallmouth zero in and commit, and you are not moving the bait very far or fast. The pause and strikes with the bottom will trigger them into biting. Add a rip and pause once in a while to add drama to the retrieve. With the Rapala DT series, there is a built in characteristic that also triggers fish. When you feel an impact, give line to the lure, and it will rise up off the bottom and do a 180 to face the bass following it. Bass hate that type of challenge and will slam it with fury! This will cover lots of water and will confirm or deny your choice of location to fish. Generally the biggest and most aggressive smallmouth will strike first with this technique. Good spots for this are points with boulder flats adjacent to them. This really is a technique for hard bottoms because of the constant bottom strikes. Weeds will foul the hooks even in the early spring so steer away from those areas.
Position yourself in deep water off the flat and cast in. Run the bait from the flat, to the edge so it runs off into open water. This will trigger the “sideline” smallmouth bass suspending at the edges of the flat. Follow this with casts upwind of your drift and make contact with the edge of the breakline into deeper water. A second pass should be on the flat and fan cast in every direction until you find the angle of retrieve that works best. Changing angles and striking the bottom are the most important things to do when deep cranking. Shut off your motor long before you reach the area to be fished. Stop upwind and drift in using the trolling motor sparingly. At the end of the drift, use the trolling motor to leave the area before starting your big motor. Go back to the starting point and drift in again. If you hit a few smallmouth but the action shuts off, give them a change up. On the next drift, switch to a soft or hard jerkbait like a Husky Jerk. A soft craw or tube on and exposed jig will help you tune in to what the smallmouth want that day. The rest of the less active smallmouth may prefer a vertical presentation versus the noisy horizontal crankbait. This should put a few more bass in the boat. Smallmouth bass are ready to fight all the time! Make sure you have fresh line and hang on.
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