Crestliner2008

Believers or Swim Wizz. 8" size slow trolled and attached by the front eye on the plug. Pike love 'em.

You can actually use just about any hook you'd like with the drop shot. It's a pretty versatile set up. I personally prefer Daiichi's Stand-Out hooks. They protect the knot area better and keep your presentation horizontal quite easily. Been using them successfully for 4 seasons now. One other point I'd like to make. After lowering your rig, hold still. Do not move it right a way. Let it settle into it's environment. Then after about 30 seconds, twitch it a little and hold again. Repeat. As soon as your sinker hits the bottom, if any bass are close by, they know it's there and are watching it. This initial pause can (and does!) create a reaction bite that can be really exciting!

I'm a CPR fisherman and have had no problem releasing a bass after unhooking, photographing and releasing them. A quick weight sample is quick and easy with the kinds of scales they have today and should not increase the releasing time that much. Know what you are going to do BEFORE you have to do it. Practice the procedure and get the bass back in the water as soon as possible. You'd be surprised at how efficient you will become at doing that.

I wanna go! PLEASE!!!! A few years back I fished the St. Lawrence in the Thousand Islands section for a week. Fabulous smallie fishing and largemouths too. Nothing to compare to those fish though!

I've heard that tungsten sinkers are 10X more toxic than lead? Can anyone confirm or rebut? If true, I wonder how long before the EPA cracks down on these, like they have with lead!

Can you explain how you do this? You must have a separate line attached to the sinker, right?

Sahara's & Symetre's require the line "spooled" on - like you do with a baitcaster - as opposed to laying the line spool on the floor and "spinning" it on. Check your owner's manual on any reel you buy today.

When I was a young lad and camping with my older brother, he'd dangle pieces of a hot dog in the water for LM bass. They'd gobble it up! Not giants mind you, but enough to get me started with fishing!

Thank you much for the input! Smelt were introduced, in the aforementioned lakes, to supplement the lake trout & salmon stockings. White & yellow perch, bass and the trouts go for them. Our lake has depths to 100'+, but an average of only about 30'. The bass stay with these large bait fish schools, especially in the summer time, eating smelt and perch. Where the smelt go, when the water cools in the fall, is what I'm most interested in, and why. I've been told they are "suppose" to head to the streams. But is that to spawn? Or some other reason? Knowing these answers can help me focus in on the bass more accurately. This is why I want to know more about the "life cycles" of the landlocked rainbow smelt.

The drop shot rig has probably accounted for the majority of smallmouth bass I've caught over the past 6 or 7 years. I started off with #4 DS hooks - the "mosquito" type. I too had a lot of boatside unbuttons. Changed to a size #2 and my lost ratio decreased. Switched to the "Stand-Out" hook (Daiichi) in size #2 and my button ratio has increased as well (these are VERY sharp hooks!). I also tried the small in-line circles, but wasn't as pleased with the results. The most important thing I've done to reduce boat-side shenanigans while small mouth fishing, is to set my drag really - REALLY - light! I use my finger on the spool, more than the drag, to control them at close range. When they shake their head.....they just take line. The hook doesn't open the bite hole this way - in my opinion anyway. Seems to work pretty well for me. Whenever I do loose a smallie boatside, it's usually because I'm putting too much pressure on them. It takes awhile longer to land a bass this way, but they're tough critters and can easily handle the stress. Less stress on us too!

Not the usual question here, but does anyone know of good online information source for this forage species? I two of the lake I frequent, the smelt is the main forage species. I'm pretty sure I know where they go in the fall, but I'm always looking for more information on forage species. Forage knowledge is much more important to successful fishing, than knowing where the spawning beds are in the springtime, for instance. I've done my own online Google; very confusing. Which is why I'm asking here. Thanks folks!

How's this for a foul hook!

As the water cools, the hard jerkbaits really come into their own. Same can be said for blade baits.

Global warming! ;D Send some up here, will ya!

Here are few recent ones taken on the Quabbin Reservoir: And of course, the scenery is not the only reason we frequent this body of water:

Took a friend out last week and we hit some nice smallies. But....this one was pathetically riddled with sores! First time I've ever seen anything like this. I've fished this reservoir for over 30 years; have caught tons of smallies out of it. This was a first for me, and my partner who caught it:

I don't believe water temperature is that much of a factor. It's the barometric pressure that interferes with a bass's metabolism. After the front the pressure rises dramatically, shutting down their normal feeding patterns. That being said however, never has a front kept me from fishing. You can usually find a few nutty bass to co-operate!

I agree with Raul, don't worry about color. Get a color YOU can see easily. Don't worry about the fish. However, if the water is deeper than the visibility of it, I'd think more about sub-surface presentations.

Great job on the river! I've only taken two smallies approaching the 5# mark, so I know how huge they are. Very impressive fish. Both the river and reservoir I fish have 5#+ smallies, but I've never been lucky enough to tie into her.....yet!

Outstanding! A little larger would be nice, but then again, anyone can do that on their own. Looks like I'll be changing my desktop again!

Some fine photos indeed! Smallies are truly beautiful! How deep were you fishing? What was the water temperature? Around my neck of the woods, the smallies are moving shallower now - 20' - 25' at most. Our water temps are in the upper 60's & low 70's.

The angled line in the 3rd. photo and the broken line in the second photo (left end of screen) are both my drop shot lines going down. I fish the back of the boat (tiller boat) all the time, so I'm fishing directly over the transducer mostly - more so than my partner in the front. The second photo shows the bass just above the elongated bait ball, which covers the bottom of the screen shot, in this instance. When you are anchored and/or drifting, you will rarely see "arches" of any kind. Fish become thick, straight lines or slightly distorted "eyebrows" near, or in back of the schooling bait. In order to see all this on your sonar screen, it is imperative that you have it set up correctly. By that, I mean, the most import adjustment is ping speed. This must be set at maximum, if an adjustment is available. Most sonars that do not have this adjustment, are already set that way at the factory. I see no reason what-so-ever, for lessening this percentage. The ping is the rate of signal shots per chart movement. For the best detail, you want as many shots as you can get, obviously! Next is chart speed. I have mine set at about 70%. That way, I get the most signal shots in each movement of the chart. I've played with this a lot and this seems to get me the best detail. Lastly is sensitivity. Since I'm fishing deep structures, I don't mind a bit of clutter on the surface, so I set mine at about 80%. This allows me to see "through" a bait ball and gives me an opportunity to see fish in that school. I hope this helps some. I've never used a color display, so I can't help you with those kind of sonars, as far as set-up is concerned.

You've got some dandy smallies there! Congrats!

That's what I dream about all year long!

Great question! First of all, you have to know your particular body of water very well, which I do with this particular reservoir. I've fished it for over 30 years. The other thing is that vegetation - at 25'+ doesn't change shape and/or density. You can actually see the thickness of the bait balls change from 2' up to 20'+ sometimes, in a matter of seconds. A sure sign you are on bait and not bottom structure and/or vegetation. The second screen shot at 34.7' is typical of the enormous size of bait balls I've encountered many, many times. This ball of bait is a combination of yellow perch and smelt (yep, they do co-exist and school together). This school will show on the screen for as long as 30 - 40 seconds, before disappearing completely. BTW, the heavier lines on top of this ball of bait are bass. This is the exact spot and time that I caught the fish pictured in my previous post. Also, my approach when I target these large, deep off-shore structures, is to anchor on them. You really cannot stay on a deep bait ball with an electric motor. I know because I've tried. The bait's tendency on these deep structures is not to just sit there. It moves, in unison, along the face of these drop offs, at a quite rapid rate. So, if you find a bait ball on say, a 35' drop, and anchor, the bait will return....time and time again....along with the bass in close pursuit. So you will have many opportunities to present your bait to bass. Lastly, I cheat! Three of my fishing partners have an Aqua View!