BigSkyBasser

C Rigs and Split Shot rigs are something I don't play around with enough despite how well they work around here. I think I just forget about them because I've never had a tough enough day recently that couldn't be fixed with a drop shot or a weedless senko. Some of the boaters that I fish with have won tournaments and caught state record fish exclusively on Carolina rigs and swear by dragging them around humps for ENORMOUS smallmouth.

I'm astounded that none of my fellow smallmouth anglers have mentioned Rainy Lake?!? This fishery can make for some of the most epic smallmouth trips in all of Ontario. Check out Rainy Lake Also notable are Coeur d'alene lake. Bullards Bar. Lake Mead (because of the history.)

When I'm broke/cheap I crimp split shot weights onto my drop shot leader....

Yeah we're primarily smallmouth anglers but we do enjoy catching a nice green one at the same time. Almost all of our better fish come between Thompson Falls and Noxon with large swaths of bank fishing and public access available. If we coordinate a trip this year we're not shy about sharing our fishing spots one bit. The smallie photo on my profile came out of a deep pool directly below the Thompson Dam and though I didn't have scale I'm fairly certain it was a 5+. As far as a club is concerned there are two that would be worth your time if you like and it really depends on whether you want to support FLW or B.A.S.S. more. The Flathead guys fish a good amount of both B.A.S.S. and TBF tournaments and the Missoula guys stick primarily with B.A.S.S. The Missoula club meets the second Wednesday of every month @ 7:30 PM in the Paradise Falls Conference room. Anyone is welcome and you don't need to give notice or RSVP. Message me if you need some contacts of the guys around here who are in charge of that stuff.

There are not too many active Montanans on the forum aside from myself. But welcome aboard! My fiancee and I live down in the Missoula Valley but as you probably know the bass fishing is nothing to write home about. We've spent a little time fishing Nine Pipes, Kicking Horse, and Pablo but never had any crazy good days there. We primarily fish the Flathead and Clark Fork along Hwy 200 West as well as Noxon and Cabinet Gorge. Always glad to see another Montanan fishing for bass though. Have you joined the Flathead or Bigsky bass clubs?

IMO chatterbait's are one of the best grass fishing baits in existence. I too recently discovered their charm during an August tournament two years ago. The finesse bite sort of died off so we got bored and started fishing a weedline with various baits. My partner tied on a z man custom chatterbait with a swimbait trailer and it was immediately slammed by a 5 pound smallie. We ended up both catching 15+ pound bags. On a side note Northerns also hate them and will typically destroy one on-sight!

Type of cover and depth usually will make you want to adjust your rig. With clear water water depending on the depth you'll want a longer leader 8-14 inches of 6-8 lb test with weights varying. Shallow water, heavy cover, and or both usually require a shorter leader (6-8 inches) and heavier line ranging from 8-12 lb test and a bait that is hooked weedless and weights no less than 3/8 oz but typically not exceeding 1/2 oz. This is optimal for flipping cover and structure or punching weeds with a drop shot which is becoming a more popular option for pressured shallow fish.

I also carry three different drop shot set ups for different situations. My new baitcasting set up is a Shimano Curado on an MHX 7'2" Medium when I'm throwing anything above 3/8 oz and power shotting.

After further research I have also come across these areas that look fun to fish. Fall Creek Falls State Park Angel Falls Overlook Trail - Cumberland River Cordell Hull Reservoir Standing Stone Lake Dale Hollow Lake Center Hill Lake Melton Lake Park Little Tennessee River We want to focus on creek and river fishing so if anyone has so cool spots they'd like to shoot our way we'd appreciate it!

I've been doing some research via Youtube and various google searches and have found that Meads Quarry Lake looks fun as well as Dock/Bank Fishing around Concord Park can be fruitful. I will keep in mind hiring a guide the price is right as this trip will be confined to a budget. Thanks for the response!

I can 2nd jerkbaits as a focus this year. Overall I'm concentrating on baits and techniques that aren't popular here because most of the bass fisherman haven't had well rounded success in tournaments so they just don't get fished. These include swimbaits, jerkbaits, vibrating jigs, and punching. The hope is that this will lead me to a new PB smallmouth as I firmly believe I spend most of my time in an area that easily is holding another state record fish (7+.)

It's about to be that time of year where a lot of us around the country are planning our annual "big" fishing trip. My spotlight this year falls on Eastern Tennessee in and around the Knoxville area as I'm planning on moving there in the future and my Fiancee has never been east of the Mississippi. Our goal is to take the last week in May and spend as much time around there and catch as many fish from shore as possible. I'm wondering if anyone knows any good ponds, or sections of river, and good lakes that would be friendly to some Montanans who've never fished water with less than 10 ft visibility. I'm not familiar with productive colors and patterns here for hard baits, jigs, soft plastics, etc (which I'm sure some guy as BPS there would know.) But any advice helps. Thanks!

It would be the least of my worries as I usually fish with braid and an 8 lb flouro leader and Medium power rod as opposed to your convention 7 Ft ML rod and 6 lb flouro. So ideally it would allow for a beefier hook set on either the drop shot or jig at that point.

That contour that sticks out of the middle on the left side of the pond should be good during pre and post spawn depending on the water temp. I'd use a jerkbait to find the smallies and then follow up with a shakeyhead or drop shot once some fish start swatting at it. Later in the year a topwater will allow you to cover most of that water and they should smack the snot out of it and tell you more about where they congregate. Have you experimented with trout colored swimbaits at all? Might be another good idea since stocked trout likely provided part of the forage and may trigger some aggressive reaction bites.

Yesterday while staring at a list of tackle for my spring order I was reading some articles and watching videos that brought a new technique to my attention. Early in the year hair/finesse jigs are clearly the way to go for cold water smallies, however some anglers also supposedly tie a drop shot 8-16 inches above said finesse jigs to maximize presentations in the water column. I'm curious what opinions exist regarding whether this defeats the purpose of fishing a jig at all or if it really is that much more effective and worth doing at any point during the year? BTW the bait monkey really seduced me and my TW order for early spring exceeded $250 mainly spent on new Jerkbaits

I've been looking at getting a thermometer to keep on me but I'm not sure how much I should invest on one or if a cheap pool thermometer would work? Thoughts?

I've looked at the Kietech baits before and they seem to have wonderful action but the softness also apparently comes with durability issues that make the price less justifiable to some. Either way I'll probably end up going this route at some point when the bait bug bites and I'm shopping.

I've recently started fishing with a chatterbait following a tournament two years ago where I used one for the first time across a grass line and pounded on em' with my boater. I seem to find success with trailers that displace as much water and thrash as violently as possible. My current go to is a Bruiser Baits super swimmer junior but I'm looking around for other options and suggestions.

I would say it's combination of information I've beaten into her from mindless repetition but also stems from her ability try things that most bass anglers wouldn't consider a conventional technique or pattern. For example one time we were fishing pre spawn on this big point that had grown grass early and we could tell there was smallies all over there but I couldn't get them to bite anything. She ties on a drop shot rig with a 1/4 oz weight and an orange Yamamoto swim senko wacky rigged (this was the dumbest looking presentation I had ever seen.) And she starts slaying them. I'm fairly certain she couldn't explain why she made this decision other than that she was wasn't bound by the information that normally would tell me to never consider trying something like this. I'm assuming this worked because these fish had been pressured by the anglers the prior weekend and had been barraged with everything you could think off, so she dropped a finesse presentation in front of them with a strange action and they didn't think twice.

I feel that your classic "gut feeling" is a combination of intuition and improvisation that some people seem to have filed down to a fine science. My fiancee seems to exhibit this much better than myself. There are certain situations that I just KNOW what do and will catch fish no matter what. However during those tough days where only a single pattern, location, or technique will pay off, she seems to find that magic touch with thinking outside the box and will figure them out for us.

I've watched some videos of Seth Feider talking about his techniques with hair jigs and tried to just slow roll them as well as jig n' pop them like a tube and neither have ever done me any real good. Caught about a 6 pound pike on one last year though haha....

I also share your affinity for negative results with the float n' fly despite it being wildly popular up here in the north country. I've even followed up with a float and senko in the exact same areas and have caught fish all day long. My plan is to try it if I'm ever bored and find a school of smallmouth that are biting anything as I also have this issue with hair jigs that I have yet to figure out how to get bit on.

The drop shot rig is absolutely dynamite during pre-spawn in Montana. I'll spend the first part of spring trying to throw swimbaits and jerkbaits to pick up those piggy females and I never seem to do great. Then I switch to drop shotting tubes along weedlines that outlet to deep water and my fiance and I slay them. We use z man tubes and dry creek tubes that float and fish them on a longer leader depending on how much the vegetation has grown in at that point. This seems to be equally effective with both smallies and largemouth.

I use the Navionics Web App for the lakes in my area that don't have paper maps available. I love this thing. http://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@6&key=wtw}GbipwT Luckily with bass they aren't able to read and archive interactions. Just because they've never seen a perch or a shad before doesn't mean that using that color won't get good reaction bites or at least force fish to reveal themselves out of interest and follow your bait. In addition there are certain super baits that work anywhere depending on water clarity that you can use without having a pattern locked down based on lake ecology. For clear water you can generally get by throwing green pumpkin, oxblood, watermelon, and other brown and green variations with decent success. In the northwest I'm often relying solely on finesse presentations such as drop shotting, ned rigs, shakey heads, and weightless baits like senkos rigged wacky or weedless. With dirty/stained water people often will go with black, blue, dark red, chartreuse, and other neon colors because of the way they stand out in the water to fish. At this point though you may want to add additional factors to help the fish find the bait such as rattles, blades, or using specific baits that thrash and displace water to cause extra vibration in the water column.

Seeing the fish as many people have mentioned will be key to determine how they react to your presence and baits in the water. However having an understanding of how these fish move around the pond during different seasons and conditions is invaluable. So when the water warms up enough (or you have a great wet suit) I'd be in the water snorkeling and trying to spot fish. This is one of my favorite things to do when I'm breaking down a new fishery because being able to picture what structure and bait is there and how fish relate to them will tell you more than anyone who's fished it ever could.