River Fishing – Stuff I have learned over the years Please add your experiences

[Cgolf]

I just thought I would share what I have learned both fishing rivers and creeks for both Bass and Trout. I have fished mostly smaller shallow rivers that are not boat accessible. I would love to have some other river rats help fill in many of the holes I have left open to help out newbies on the river.

Trying to find smallies

Smallies love current, and will be on current edges or sitting in current breaks. What you want to look for are eddies, which essentially are pools of water where the water swirls and the current is much less severe from the main flow, but could be smack in the middle of the main flow. Less active fish can be caught within the center of the eddy, while actively feeding fish will hang on the edges waiting for food to be washed by. Running cranks or soft plastics through these areas is an effective way to catch these fish.

If the river has a lot of rocks on the bottom, the fish will position themselves behind the rocks and also in front of the rocks (there can be some slack water on the upstream side of an obstruction) in the main flow to conserve energy and pick off easy meals. Many times they will crush a bait that briefly gets hung on a rock and is popped loose. Contact with the cover is key in these situations regardless if you are using crankbaits or softbaits. Since many times the water is to dingy to see the rocks, just tossing and retrieving over a boulder field is most effective. I know that in theory you should always retrieve with the lure on a downstream trajectory, to mimic prey being washed downstream, but I have had a ton of success bringing lures upstream too, probably because craws and preyfish will move upstream too.

Other less obvious holds can be washouts or small depressions that will have a dead spot in the flow. In a tailwater I have fished, I have seen a spot where the flow was rapids level that I could drop a crankbait in and pull it upstream and usually hook up with a big fish. Now looking at it from the surface you would say now way in heck would a fish hold in that much current. When I waded in though, I found a small depression in the bottom that the fish could hold in and feed. These spots are of course more difficult to find, but gives you a reason to never give up on a cast and to learn the stretch of river that you are fishing.

Trying to find largies

Alright here is where I need some help, I have gotten a few, but most have been seen in slack water. Once in a while I will catch one in heavy current areas, but that is very rare. One thing that I have found is that when the river starts to flood the largemouth come out of hiding and I tend to do better with them then smallies.

Baits

Be prepared to lose a lot, it just happens. I personally would go with lower cost options to make the pain of losing a bait easier to swallow. I have had trips where I have lost 3 cranks in an hour. For soft plastics what I try and do is find a jig weight that will 9 times out of 10 bounce off the rocks, and sometimes snag. Too light of jig will wash the bait past the fish to quickly and not contact the cover. Most of the time I am trying to mimic crawfish, so my #1 go to soft plastic has been a Yum Crawbug. Other baits I have tried are some of the cheaper swimbaits like the swimming fluke, small curltail worms, straight tail worms  with some success. Tubes and 3 to 5” grubs do rather well for me too. Of course there is the Ned rig which did really well for me last year. It still allows me to bounce off the rocks, but seems to snag up less due to the buoyant plastic.

For cranks my go to has been the Bandit 100, and there isn’t really a close second. One that could inch its way in there is the newer Strike King shallow SB, but it didn’t catch fish for as long in the season as the Bandit did. Another crank that worked really well was the smaller, not smallest, X rap when the water was really cold. The best attributes that I have found for river cranks are a subtle tighter wobble. They just seem to track better in current. Shad raps also love to be run through the current too and can also be pretty good. Wide wobbling looser action cranks don’t do as well. I will say though that the Scatter Rap crank did pretty well as long as I didn’t horse it in. It is one that is on my list to work with more next year. It did wash out in heavy current sometimes, but I will pay that price if it continues to catch fish for me.

Setting the hook

With this type of fishing there is no waiting, you feel something you hit it. Many times due to the current your bait and line will be going different ways, so waiting to set the hook only ends up as a bad thing. I will say the quick set has served me well on lakes too, I don’t miss a lot of fish, and only really lose fish that wrap themselves around some cover.

So that is it from me, hopefully some find this useful and others can expand on this, especially with some info on larger deeper rivers with wing dams and such. I will say the best place to learn to fish current is in the tailwaters of a spillway style dam, there is a lot going on beneath them, and really gives you a crash course on how fish hold to cover.

[everythingthatswims]

Smallies are usually pretty easy to find, if you have current and rocks you have them. A laydown with good current running through it means there's a big one, you may not catch her but she's there. 

Largemouth are predictable too if you know what to look for. They are lazy and even though in lakes they go TO the current, in rivers they tend to go AWAY from it, so I look for the calmest water I can find. In my experience, river largemouth like wood more than rock but you can catch them around either. Anywhere with big patches of grass that create current breaks are good places to start. 

Key spots are feeder creeks, and places where the river "skips" a bend in periods of high water, this creates a pool of slack water when the water is at a normal level and it receives little or no flow. These are always good, but in the spring they are really good because they warm way faster than the part of the river that has a constant flow, and the largemouth will gather there to spawn.

Feeder creeks during a flood can be shooting fish in a barrel also!

 

Favorite smallie baits (In typical conditions) are a 4" t rigged senko with a very small weight, super spook jr, a 1/4oz jig, and a war eagle double willow spinnerbait.

For river largemouth I like a Cavitron buzzbait, 3/8oz-1/2oz flipping jig, SK swimjig with a swimmin' fluke jr trailer, and a T-rigged zoom 'ol monster, I fish it in the same places I use the jig.

[bowhunter63]

Rage Bug and Rage Craw has killed for me on the rivers.Used on a rage rig it cuts my hang ups way down.It pops right out of 90 percent of snags.Swim jig and a swimbait trailer works good too.

[Scott F]

Do not overlook downed trees. If your river has lay downs, work them over. If there are few, it will concentrate the bass. I let an unweighted senko drift as close as I can get it. Toss jigs around the branches. On sunny days, a shade line will be a prime pattern.

If you like jigs, bullet heads like Charlie Brewer Slicer heads or the Luck-E-Strike offset, wide gap bullet heads come though rocks better than any ball head or football jig

I have never been a fan of crankbaits in the shallow rivers I fish. If you throw them upstream, you have to crank them very fast to get them to vibrate properly. Throwing them downstream, you have to crank them very slowly to get them to work right. Too many other lures that I can catch fish on to use a bait that is not as versatile for me.

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, Scott F said:

Do not overlook downed trees. If your river has lay downs, work them over. If there are few, it will concentrate the bass. I let an unweighted senko drift as close as I can get it. Toss jigs around the branches. On sunny days, a shade line will be a prime pattern.

If you like jigs, bullet heads like Charlie Brewer Slicer heads or the Luck-E-Strike offset, wide gap bullet heads come though rocks better than any ball head or football jig

I have never been a fan of crankbaits in the shallow rivers I fish. If you throw them upstream, you have to crank them very fast to get them to vibrate properly. Throwing them downstream, you have to crank them very slowly to get them to work right. Too many other lures that I can catch fish on to use a bait that is not as versatile for me.

Slider spider heads are really awesome, they work great on lakes too. The only problem I have run into, is that sometimes the hook point gets toasted after a rock snag. 

Quartering the current with cranks works really well, totally agree that they can't be  cast directly upstream or downstream unless you are casting into slack water. . My fish count is pretty much split 50/50 between soft baits and cranks.