Hi Italo I have a cottage within 30 minutes of Huntsville. The lake Im on is quite large and gets down to 200+ feet. This year the smallie fishing has been quite tough for some reason. It seems like all of the spots that were holding the fish last year have dried up with the exception of some small ones. What type of depth would you suggest I should be targeting to hook up some of the larger smallmouth Thanks
Posted on September 30th, 2013Hi Simon…Tough question to answer without knowing the lake or what the smallies are foraging on. I have a feeling that the bass have moved to different depth/locations where their primariy food moved to. It’s possible that they have gone deeper. Perhaps, even off the same areas you are use to catching them. If you have a reliable sonar, I would encourage you to slowly scan the areas (20-40′ in depth),around major structure that goes into deeper water like points, bars, shoals and reefs. It is common for smallmouth bass to feed on baitfish as deep as 50′, but the only way to find them at those depth with reliability is with a fish finder. If you do locate fish, try vertical jigigng a vertical jigging spoon (same as the spoons used for ice fishing; Mr. Champ, Rapala More Silda, Lil’ Fin, etc). You can also fish a drop-shot rig with worms, minnows or leeches and lastlly, you can drag a 4″ tube jig….God bless you, Italo