Does anyone else feel like they catch more quantity in current but more quality off of rock banks in slower moving water?

[Ohioguy25]

So I used to think it was all about working the current seams exclusively, but since I’ve branched out to different waterways (all creeks and smaller rivers no more than 100 yards wide) and fished harder than I used to, I’ve noticed the bigger fish seem to be tucked up against rock banks and not necessarily right up in the froth. In fact I’ve honestly caught them in completely still water with no current in sight, which makes me rethink the whole ballgame.  
 

These conditions have been so productive that I no longer skip any sort of rocky structure, whereas there are some areas with current that are either too dangerous or impossible to stop in in a kayak or unfishable due to a lack of any good breaks/slack water.  Am I missing out by not throwing a good top water, swim bait, or spinnerbait into the actual current itself or are they mostly on the seams in ambush mode? I still try to work every bit of current I come across but sometimes the current breaks are inaccessible, however if it’s worth casting into the actual current itself I’ll start doing that.

 

Anyway, hit me with any knowledge you’ve  got! I love learning about this and it has become a real passion, it’s all I do in my free time. 

 

[Bluebasser86]

In rivers and streams, those little breaks in the current are my big fish magnets. It doesn't take much, 1 bigger rock or a branch is all it takes. 

[gim]

There is a relatively small to medium sized river that I fish for smallmouth in midsummer (usually July-August).  Its too shallow and unpredictable for a normal sized boat.  We use a 12 foot jon boat and just float with the current from one canoe access to another.  There are some areas that are only inches deep.  I have been fishing this river for about 15 years now.

 

We cast to shoreline targets and eddies and large boulders as we float by.  In some areas that are deeper, we anchor for a while and work it more thoroughly.  The fish generally associate with some sort of current because that is what holds oxygen.  There are stretches of this river that are slow current and those areas generally do not hold fish.  I have caught some in those areas, but it is an exception, not the norm.

 

The locations that hold the largest bass have at least some current and some depth.  Undercut banks, over hanging trees, log jams, etc seem to be magnets for big brown bass.  Accuracy is key.  Placing your lure in a spot about the size of a dinner plate is required.  Too far and you get hung up.  Too short and the fish doesn't strike.

 

At this point, it appears I may not be able to fish this river this season because the water is already so low.  Unless we get a monsoon of rain in the next 30 days, even a shallow drafting jon boat won't make it without dragging on bottom and bumping rocks all the time.  I can recall one other year when we were not able to float this river in 2012.

[Ohioguy25]

39 minutes ago, gimruis said:

There is a relatively small to medium sized river that I fish for smallmouth in midsummer (usually July-August).  Its too shallow and unpredictable for a normal sized boat.  We use a 12 foot jon boat and just float with the current from one canoe access to another.  There are some areas that are only inches deep.  I have been fishing this river for about 15 years now.

 

We cast to shoreline targets and eddies and large boulders as we float by.  In some areas that are deeper, we anchor for a while and work it more thoroughly.  The fish generally associate with some sort of current because that is what holds oxygen.  There are stretches of this river that are slow current and those areas generally do not hold fish.  I have caught some in those areas, but it is an exception, not the norm.

 

The locations that hold the largest bass have at least some current and some depth.  Undercut banks, over hanging trees, log jams, etc seem to be magnets for big brown bass.  Accuracy is key.  Placing your lure in a spot about the size of a dinner plate is required.  Too far and you get hung up.  Too short and the fish doesn't strike.

 

At this point, it appears I may not be able to fish this river this season because the water is already so low.  Unless we get a monsoon of rain in the next 30 days, even a shallow drafting jon boat won't make it without dragging on bottom and bumping rocks all the time.  I can recall one other year when we were not able to float this river in 2012.

Interesting, I’ve never caught a smallie on a lay down or overhanging tree roots. That seems to be largemouth/rock bass territory.  It’s either rocks or current for me, the best obviously being a combination of the two.

[gim]

I'm fully convinced that virtually any lure will work in many of the situations where accurate casting is required in this river.  As long as you place that lure in the correct spot, they will hit it.  I usually only carry two setups when I fish this river: a BC with a topwater or shallow crank bait, and a follow up spinning setup with some sort of plastic like a wacky rig or a tube.  Quite often, when the fish misses the first one, I cast right back there with the plastic and catch the same fish.

[Scott F]

DO NOT ever pass by a lay down. They are usually bass magnets. One big tree can hold several fish. It’s a spot to stop and try to pick apart. Just like largemouth fishing. It’s often worth all the effort to get as many casts as you can tight to the branches without getting hung up. Spots like that is when you have to change to baits that you can work without getting snagged. Some days, that’s the pattern that pays, other times, not so much. You are learning that bass don’t always follow strict rules. Break lines can also set up where the fast water passes directly over an underwater eddie. Fast, frothy current may hide an underwater boulder that a bass can sit behind out of the current and watch for food to pass over head. 

[MGF]

19 hours ago, Ohioguy25 said:

Interesting, I’ve never caught a smallie on a lay down or overhanging tree roots. That seems to be largemouth/rock bass territory.  It’s either rocks or current for me, the best obviously being a combination of the two.

My river has long stretches with one lay down after another. While I have caught fish on some of those stretches seeing laydowns doesn't get me excited. Sometimes there are lots of trees (and laydowns) where there is good soil (mud) and I don't catch many brown bass off of mud.

 

I have to skip some water or I'll run out of weekend before I get to the next ramp and I skip the mud.

[Spankey]

22 hours ago, Ohioguy25 said:

Interesting, I’ve never caught a smallie on a lay down or overhanging tree roots. That seems to be largemouth/rock bass territory.  It’s either rocks or current for me, the best obviously being a combination of the two.

Don’t underestimate a lay down. On numerous occasions I’ve caught a Smallie and a greenie off the same one. Maybe not in the same part of that lay down. 
 

Drifting down a rock and tree covered river bank I caught greenies where generally I’d pick off Smallies. No rhyme or reason to it. 
 

I look at currents and current breaks as just another form of structure. 
 

I’m not a biologists so I really don’t know if a Smallie or a greenie get real territorial. But my findings over the years is they don’t. Spawn might be a different story. 
 

My bigger river Smallies over the years have come out of all those different covers and structures. I don’t think they are that particular as to what they eat. Crawdads on more rock related cover, sunfishes and shiners in slack lay down and vegetation situations. 
 

Those Smallies know those rivers and streams like the back of their fins. What might look like is the perfect home or situation to nail one always doesn’t happen. He might be far from that current, structure or current break. Might be just setting on the bottom of the closest drop off in deeper water. 
 

Good luck. 

3 hours ago, MGF said:

My river has long stretches with one lay down after another. While I have caught fish on some of those stretches seeing laydowns doesn't get me excited. Sometimes there are lots of trees (and laydowns) where there is good soil (mud) and I don't catch many brown bass off of mud.

 

I have to skip some water or I'll run out of weekend before I get to the next ramp and I skip the mud.

Very true. I find myself doing that same thing. I don’t find Green fish making their home there either. But not to say I have not picked a few fish off with a Rat-L-Trap or spinnerbait near that. I believe they were fish cruising around or  just in that area. 

[gim]

14 minutes ago, Spankey said:

I don’t think they are that particular as to what they eat. Crawdads on more rock related cover, sunfishes and shiners in slack lay down and vegetation situations. 

 

The river I fish in midsummer is LOADED with crayfish.  In some areas I see hundreds of them scatter along the bottom in certain areas.

 

Secondarily, there may be a food source with certain bug hatches, frogs, and minnows of some kind but by far and wide their primary food source in the warm months are crayfish.

[Ohioguy25]

4 hours ago, MGF said:

My river has long stretches with one lay down after another. While I have caught fish on some of those stretches seeing laydowns doesn't get me excited. Sometimes there are lots of trees (and laydowns) where there is good soil (mud) and I don't catch many brown bass off of mud.

 

I have to skip some water or I'll run out of weekend before I get to the next ramp and I skip the mud.

Yes I completely skip muddy areas, which is typically where lay downs and wood structure are. Rocks, rocks, rocks! Smallies love rocks, which is a shame because a lot of Ohio rivers have been tainted by agricultural runoff from all of the farmland, destroying the rocky bottom and habitat for crawfish that allows smallmouth to thrive.

 

Thankfully I’m still blessed with some pretty excellent smallmouth fisheries, they’re just not quite as good as they probably were at one point. I wonder if there is a way to terraform and line the riverbed with rocks to reinvigorate some of that environment?

[Spankey]

1 hour ago, Ohioguy25 said:

Yes I completely skip muddy areas, which is typically where lay downs and wood structure are. Rocks, rocks, rocks! Smallies love rocks, which is a shame because a lot of Ohio rivers have been tainted by agricultural runoff from all of the farmland, destroying the rocky bottom and habitat for crawfish that allows smallmouth to thrive.

 

Thankfully I’m still blessed with some pretty excellent smallmouth fisheries, they’re just not quite as good as they probably were at one point. I wonder if there is a way to terraform and line the riverbed with rocks to reinvigorate some of that environment?

Great Post! This is what ruined what was my home waters. Again I’m not by any means a biologist. But it effects the whole eco system at the river. The Smallies will move on to areas they want to be in. Sometimes it’s not that far, to habitat they like. 

[Ohioguy25]

7 minutes ago, Spankey said:

Great Post! This is what ruined what was my home waters. Again I’m not by any means a biologist. But it effects the whole eco system at the river. The Smallies will move on to areas they want to be in. Sometimes it’s not that far, to habitat they like. 

Yeah I would imagine most of the country at one point suffered the effects of agriculture and development of farmland, especially the flatter, rural Midwest. I look at the protected wildlife areas I float through and imagine what the country was like before Europeans arrived, the Native Americans had abundant resources and wilderness all to themselves, nature operating uninhibited and as it is supposed to. I would kill to experience that.

[PaulVE64]

In my home river

My largest smallies are just off the bank usually near a dropoff to 4 or 5 feet.

All of those are reaction bites with topwater.

Jigs/tubes in boulder fields produce the next largest.

Current gets me numbers

 

[flyfisher]

It all depends on the river and the bottom structure. I fish an area that has a pretty sandy bottom for about a mile of river.  In this mile there are drop offs and sand bars etc.  Any letdown or boulder in this stretch is a guaranteed fish but they are super spooky.  My thought is they are on the only cover available so they are extra cautious.  

Upriver of that there is your more typical rocky gravel type bottom composition.  Current breaks are key but there are lots of those so you gotta find something different that is attractive to the bass and why they want to be there.  Sometimes it is a larger than the other boulders, other times it is a nice seam with a drop off downstream a little ways and one thing that always brings true is to fish larger eddies and do so methodically.

[Ohioguy25]

2 hours ago, flyfisher said:

It all depends on the river and the bottom structure. I fish an area that has a pretty sandy bottom for about a mile of river.  In this mile there are drop offs and sand bars etc.  Any letdown or boulder in this stretch is a guaranteed fish but they are super spooky.  My thought is they are on the only cover available so they are extra cautious.  

Upriver of that there is your more typical rocky gravel type bottom composition.  Current breaks are key but there are lots of those so you gotta find something different that is attractive to the bass and why they want to be there.  Sometimes it is a larger than the other boulders, other times it is a nice seam with a drop off downstream a little ways and one thing that always brings true is to fish larger eddies and do so methodically.

What exactly are eddies, is that a current break and how big would you say is larger?

[flyfisher]

10 hours ago, Ohioguy25 said:

What exactly are eddies, is that a current break and how big would you say is larger?

Eddies are the downstream spots after a large current break like a boulder.  Water usually is calm and swirls and will even draw you upstream, look for the foam on top of the river as it can be a huge key in determining current patterns.  You can usually get in one and sit without anchoring in current, you see it a lot with whitewater kayakers after a rapid as they eddie out, face upstream and wait for their buddies to come through. https://www.paddleeducation.com/whitewater-kayaking/the-anatomy-of-a-river/river-features-2/eddies/

One thing though is you want to start fishing downstream of where you think the eddie actually is because some days the fish will be at the tail end others in the middle and others over the top at the very front of the current break, you just never know until you fish it and find out.  One thing i have found is that generally when you pick up a couple fish in a specific spot on 2 or more eddies, you can almost bet they will be in those same places in other eddies as well.

[galyonj]

10 hours ago, Ohioguy25 said:

What exactly are eddies, is that a current break and how big would you say is larger?

 

To me they're kind of the same thing.

 

The difference for me is that current breaks are the line between the constant-speed flowing river water and the eddy itself, caused by some kind of structure or hard cover (boulders, laydowns, logjams, and stuff like that), and eddies are the water that's stacking up behind that structure or hard cover.

 

Some days you can make a whole pattern out of just fishing the water that you see swirling backwards, because that's your clue that there's something under the surface there that's big enough for them to hide in and lay in wait for their takeout order.

[Ohioguy25]

38 minutes ago, flyfisher said:

Eddies are the downstream spots after a large current break like a boulder.  Water usually is calm and swirls and will even draw you upstream, look for the foam on top of the river as it can be a huge key in determining current patterns.  You can usually get in one and sit without anchoring in current, you see it a lot with whitewater kayakers after a rapid as they eddie out, face upstream and wait for their buddies to come through. https://www.paddleeducation.com/whitewater-kayaking/the-anatomy-of-a-river/river-features-2/eddies/

One thing though is you want to start fishing downstream of where you think the eddie actually is because some days the fish will be at the tail end others in the middle and others over the top at the very front of the current break, you just never know until you fish it and find out.  One thing i have found is that generally when you pick up a couple fish in a specific spot on 2 or more eddies, you can almost bet they will be in those same places in other eddies as well.

See I thought those whirlpool like systems were not good targets, at least when I’m fishing with live bait, as they prevent you from getting a good presentation and kill the bait quickly by spinning it around and sucking it down.  I guess I’ve always avoided them and stuck to the current seam, letting the bobber float right down the line. Is this not the ideal method, should I be burning a spinnerbait through those eddies or working a soft grub off the bottom?

[flyfisher]

10 minutes ago, Ohioguy25 said:

See I thought those whirlpool like systems were not good targets, at least when I’m fishing with live bait, as they prevent you from getting a good presentation and kill the bait quickly by spinning it around and sucking it down.  I guess I’ve always avoided them and stuck to the current seam, letting the bobber float right down the line. Is this not the ideal method, should I be burning a spinnerbait through those eddies or working a soft grub off the bottom?

nothing wrong with current seams either.   You have to think about what bass are trying to accomplish (outside of spawning time).  Be safe from predators and eat.  That is pretty much it and if you can find the areas they are doing that then you are good.  Current seams are like a conveyor belt for food so they always produce but it takes a little more effort to sit there.  Eddies a fish can sit and not have to expend as much energy and in summer the water is usually more oxygenated as well.  

 

I don't fish with live bait in rivers so as far as that goes I have no idea.  I also primarily fly fish in rivers but dead drifting various flies is always a top producer for me.  When i do conventional fish a killer technique is a nose hooked 4" stick worm weightless and dead drifted down through with the occasional twitch.  

You'll go through some baits but it flat out works.  I had some custom made years ago that were double dipped at the nose just for this technique and to lessen break offs.  

 

I am more of a crankbait guy on the river but i have buddies who do well with spinnerbaits too.  That is the fun part about river fishing, i think the majority of the time it is about getting your bait in front of the fish rather than which bait, except in winter

[moguy1973]

Big river fish don't get big by hanging out in slack water where the food isn't.  Most of my big river fish have been in current breaks or some sort of cover near faster moving water.  The 4 1/2lber in my avatar came from the only laydown in the area I was fishing at that time and there was fast water about 3' away.  She was sitting in the slow water wafting for whatever bait was moving by in the faster water, which just so happened to be my gurgle toad.

[flyfisher]

1 minute ago, moguy1973 said:

Big river fish don't get big by hanging out in slack water where the food isn't.  Most of my big river fish have been in current breaks or some sort of cover near faster moving water.  The 4 1/2lber in my avatar came from the only laydown in the area I was fishing at that time and there was fast water about 3' away.  She was sitting in the slow water wafting for whatever bait was moving by in the faster water, which just so happened to be my gurgle toad.

you are sort of correct but not completely.  The example you posted for your fish isn't just a current break it is also access to food.  Slack water in current is only caused by a current break so food will absolutely be pushed to them in these areas and they have to expend little energy to do so. The biggest fish get the prime locations in most rivers. Sure when fish are feeding they will be more mobile but hitting that time isn't as easy which is why i like to focus on both the active and the inactive fish near current breaks.  

 

I think the biggest key in river fishing is being able to read the river by surface movement and not having to actually see it.

 

[Ohioguy25]

2 hours ago, moguy1973 said:

Big river fish don't get big by hanging out in slack water where the food isn't.  Most of my big river fish have been in current breaks or some sort of cover near faster moving water.  The 4 1/2lber in my avatar came from the only laydown in the area I was fishing at that time and there was fast water about 3' away.  She was sitting in the slow water wafting for whatever bait was moving by in the faster water, which just so happened to be my gurgle toad.

As I said in my OP, I’m not fishing big rivers. Exclusively creeks and small rivers no more than 100 yards wide.

[gim]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:47 AM, Ohioguy25 said:

Yeah I would imagine most of the country at one point suffered the effects of agriculture and development of farmland, especially the flatter, rural Midwest. I look at the protected wildlife areas I float through

Preserving the river edge with some kind of natural buffer is key here. A strip of narrow land with native prairie grass, trees, and rocky rip rap helps reduce agricultural runoff greatly. When landowners cut it all down and line the banks with row crops, runoff is rampant. The river I fish is rated as the only “wild and scenic” river remaining in this state because the banks have not been altered in significant form. Thus, the water quality is still very good and the entire ecosystem still thrives in its natural form.

 

Bug hatches are also a sign of a healthy river. As annoying as they are, if you are having massive hatches of bugs like mayflies that is a sign of a healthy waterway. Bugs cannot hatch out of polluted water.

[moguy1973]

20 hours ago, Ohioguy25 said:

As I said in my OP, I’m not fishing big rivers. Exclusively creeks and small rivers no more than 100 yards wide.

I didn't mean "Big River" fish I meant big fish in rivers.  Around here even little creeks are called rivers where they start.  We don't catch many bass in the parts of the BIG rivers around here.  All of the good rivers are like the ones you fish.

[Ohioguy25]

12 minutes ago, moguy1973 said:

I didn't mean "Big River" fish I meant big fish in rivers.  Around here even little creeks are called rivers where they start.  We don't catch many bass in the parts of the BIG rivers around here.  All of the good rivers are like the ones you fish.

Ah gotcha my bad, emphasis on the river. Yeah that makes sense, smallies prefer fast moving, cool water (green trout) so while they can certainly be found in lakes and large rivers like the Ohio they are much more abundant in the smaller tributaries where they thrive, not to mention mostly at the top of the food chain.