I thought river smallmouth hit live bait year round?

[TnRiver46]

4 minutes ago, Ohioguy25 said:

Why is that?

Metabolic rate slows to molasses levels . I think it takes them several days to digest one minnow in cold water 

[Sphynx]

I know for a fact that you can be in the middle of fish and still not get bit, seen it plenty of times, there are some mysteries that maybe aren't going to be solved in a lifetime, live bait is a perfectly effective strategy for catching bass, it isn't a magic bullet though, any more than the latest and greatest new artificial bait that has taken the world by storm, I do know that while it's possible to not get bit while fishing where there are confirmed fish, it's not at all possible to get bit where there are no fish, it's a bit of a bummer to think about, but on the days where the conditions do not favor fish being at the spots on the bank I have access to, I occasionally will opt to not go, now sometimes you get a surprise, but not too often, if they aren't there, you aren't going to catch them no matter what sort of presentation you give them...still, no such thing as a bad day on the water, if they aren't biting try working on something you can control, like accurate casts to available cover, or current breaks, or all the likely hiding holes for these fish. Another favorite hobby of mine on days where I can't buy a bite is exploring for new fishing holes, got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

[MGF]

On 11/17/2020 at 5:05 PM, Ohioguy25 said:

Yeah completely different water than what I’m in, I’m fishing a creek like MGF, averaging 3-5 ft. There are deeper holes but not much more than 10-15 ft max.

I couldn't even say we average 3-5 ft. Like I said right now I'd consider anything over 3 ft a "hole". The low water this fall really slowed our fishing because it takes so long to get down the river. There are long section of water that's only inches deep and some place where we even need to get out and walk.

 

At a normal water level there are places 5 ft deep. I think I could fine one or two spots that might go 10 ft but I don't believe there's anything as deep as 15 ft.

 

The bottom line is they're catching fish down river and I'm not. I had planned to fish down there last Monday but went to hitch the boat and found I had a flat tire on the truck.

[MGF]

Just a quick follow up to what I've been pondering regarding bass migration in small rivers.

 

I finally made it down to the lower river just where it starts to widen into the reservoir. I went with two week old information. Last week the folks at the bait shop told me SMB were being caught on shallow flats in a certain section of lake/river. They also told me that info was a week old...two weeks from yesterday.

 

Anyway I didn't find them there The water was 46 F and I found them a tad further down lake and a little bit deeper.

 

There were also a TON of bass boats out there chasing those bass.