Simplifying your Approach to Smallmouth Fishing

I am an absolute Panfish nut and spend most of my time searching for bull Bluegills, Jumbo Perch and big

Crappies, but there is one fish that I can't seem to ever get my mind off and that's Smallmouth bass. A rush of excitement runs through my body every morning knowing that you could have a very sore arm by the end of the day. 

There are so Many Ways to Approach these drag pulling head shaking beauty's, but my favorite way of targeting these fish is your standard Walleye equipment Such as Crawler Harnesses and the Lindy Rig known in the bass world as the "Carolina Rig". Simply put the Lindy Rig is one of the easiest presentations and could be considered one of the most effective for every type of mood the fish throw at you. 

As Most Know a simple Lindy rig is 6ft snell with live bait on the end such as a Crawler, leech or Minnow

followed by a barrel swivel and a walking sinker to keep your presentation on the bottom. This Presentation allows me to stay tight to the structure I am fishing and enables my Electronics to do the talking. A great example is my past few weeks of fishing. Fish have pushed deeper onto the transition line and I have been finding them tight to the grass and sand transition in 18.5 fow. Now When I say 18.5 Ft I mean that exact depth as these fish are not holding a foot more or a foot less. With this rig I am allowing my self to fish almost right below me covering alot of ground and giving me the best percentage on keeping it right in the strike zone. 

A good sonar and gps become key when you need to stay tight to a certain piece of terrain. My sonar helps me stay right in the depth and shows every movement I make on my gps. When coming over a school of fish you just marked I start about 50 yards away and make my way toward the school because if there is one group you will probably find more along your way and giving your bait the best look coming into the strike zone. Not every school is going to be aggressive and that is what makes this presentation so special. I always start out at .5 mph to see how active the fish are and proceed to slow down my speed sometimes coming to a stop and letting your leech or minnow do the work. Every time I get a hook set I mark a way point and as you catch more fish you will develop a pattern fishing multiple schools and slowing down or speeding up on every batch you approach. 

This method has blessed me with many 100+ fish days and some big fish days as well. Tie up a Lindy Rig when you are targeting Smallmouth and I know you will get bit. 

Happy Fishing Everyone!!

Mike Raetz