SMALLIE TOURNAMENT-Need Help!!!

[DonkeyHunter]

I have an important tournament this Sunday (6/29) and it is one of our tournaments that is geared totally towards smallies. The lake we are fishing holds VERY little largemouth,  if any at all. So,  my partner and I have to target smalljaws. When I was younger I prided myself on being a great smallmouth fisherman and now the last few years I have really turned into more of a "power" largemouth guy. We have pre-fished the lake the tourney's on twice so far with UN promising results. I need ANY pointers I can get and I am going to write my initial rigging plan and please let me know if anyone has any better suggestions/tips/criticisms/ANYTHING!

Pond: Ultra "gin-clear" lake. 1200 acres. Known as an excellent trout pond. Stocked HEAVILY every spring and fall with rainbow, brook, and brown trout. Also salmon. Known to hold ENORMOUS smallmouth. Generally a deep pond with lots of submerged elevation changes. Humps, dips, ledges, ditches, STEEP drop offs, underwater islands, flats. Rocky,  clean bottom. Very sparse vegetation.

Rigs:

CASTING

6'6" MH Kistler MagTS casting rod: 1/2oz. Chrt./wht. terminator super stainless spinnerbait with twin willow blades. Big one chart.,  smaller one whte---Slow roll it in deeperwater and burn it across flats and up ledges.

7'0" H Kistler MagTS casting rod: Carolina Rig with 1/2 oz. Tru-Tungsten weight and bead, with a Green Pumpkin 6" Zoom Lizard or a 6" Zoom Trick Worm in Seedless Watermelon. (which one???)

6'9" MH Kistler Helium LTA casting rod: Cannot decide: Either a 5/16oz. Watermelon Eakins Jig with a watermelon/rd. flk. BPS Twin Tail grup trailer,  OR,  a 3/8oz. Black Jig head with a 4" watermelon ribbed grub. WHICH ONE???

7'0" MH Kistler MagTS CRANKING casting rod: In the morning a Heddon Super Spook Jr. in a bluegill-type pattern,  In the late morning/midday: a Lucky Craft Lipless crank in Moss Craw pattern,  OR  a Strike King Series 6 Deep diving crank in Sexy Shad pattern )WHICH ONE???(

SPINNING:

6'9" M Kistler Helium II LTX spinning rod: A drop shot rig with a strike king Elaztech Super Finesse Worm in Watermelonseed.

7'0" MH Falcon CARA spinning rod:  5/16oz. Tube jig with a Yum Vibra King finesse tube in Watermelonseed. no rattle.

PLEASE let me know if any of you guys have any other suggestions or if you think I should throw anything else other than what I wrote or if I should throw a rig on a different rod or ANYTHING at all to help me. It would be g r e a t l y appreciated!!! Thanx in advance!!

[roadwarrior]

In low light, the Zara Spook and LC Pointer rule!

Later in the morning and throughout the day,

Fat Ika <12' of water, 3 1/2" tubes, GYCB Hula

Grubs and Single Tail Grubs are great producers.

Lizards on a split shot have woked for me, too.

For big smallmouth and a deeper presentation,

the 3/4 oz Ledgebuster Single Willow Blade

spinnerbait is another suggestion.

Good luck!

8-)

[Zel]

WELCOME!

I fish 2 northeastern PA akes that are predominately smallmouth habitats.  You noted that the water is gin clear, deep, and has good structure.  For me those combinations means downsizing when fishing for smallmouth.  I will list 3 things which I would not be without in the conditions you listed, but you need to fish your strengths and confidence baits for a tournament.  

1.

If there were any wind, or a chop on the water, I would be fishing a 4 Fin's-Fish in rainbow trout color.  I would have no problem fishing it anywhere, even in 30 feet of water over bass migration routes.  It has been my experience the smallies will come up 20+ feet in gin clear water to smack the soft jerkbait (but chop on the top is key).

2.

I would also have a 4 Slider Worm, or a 4 hand poured Berkley straight worm, tied to a 1/8 ounce Slider Spider Jig.  I would stick with natural dark colors like black, watermelon w/red flake, green pumpkin, and if there were blue bird skys I would also throw a darker purple.  I would hit all structure with it down to about 15 ft.

3.

If the bite was tough, I would also add a jigging spoon to complements the drop shot.  With the jigging spoon, I find it works best when targeting bass in the 2030 ft water depths, with the bass suspended 1 to 5 feet from the bottom.  I would prefer the area have some structure the bass are relating to, and that baitfish be in the general area.  Silver = sunny, gold = cloudy.

Good luck in the tourney.  Let us know how you do.

[River Rat 58]

find a flat with a rocky bottom and through spinners across it also for spinners look for down structure along the shoreline and toss ur spinners as close to the shore or structure.  Also if there are any lily pads in this lake get ur biggest badest spinner and skim it through the weeds and pads ive had good topwater action doing this