Pinpointing Spots on Rivers

[BigMouthBasstard]

Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for pinpointing an area to start on a river. I am more familiar with lake fishing. The whole entire shoreline for miles and miles is all sloughs or eddys with laydowns primarily as the structure and numerous limbs sand, and rocks for cover. Everything looks great but only a few spots have really produced. I can't seem to find a pattern as far as baits go.

I have almost any type of lure you could imagine and have thrown the box at em.

The most success has been on sandbar dropoffs where there is and eddy and warmer water but only a few fish on the wood.

I appreciate the advice.

[smashingsmallies]

Smallites LOVE rocks-lot's of craws.  Bottom of eddy, seam of eddy, middle of eddy, top of eddy.  Be versatile. Topwater, cranks, tubes, straight worms, plastic craws and my favorite, 5'' twisters on a football head jig--can fish it straightline like a minnow, pop it or drop it to the bottom and work it like a craw.  I don't know about others on here, but I don't get too many smallies off wood-mainly largemouth.  Besides the eddies, don't forget cut banks and any type of water depth change from shallow to deeper...even if it's only a 6" drop.  Behind rocks, bottom of a run to the top of a run.  DO NOT fish a hole with one bait and then move on.  If you don't get anything on what your fishing, grab another rod or bait and hit it again--I had to do this on Sunday and it worked.  Keep asking questions and you'll get a boat load of info on here from the guys--they've helped me greatly.  Hope this helps, Fish on, John.

[NateFollmer]

Don't limit yourself to just those areas. Look for 'boils' and ripples in open water current. This means there is something big under there like a boulder or tree. Smallies and walleye love to hang out in front of and behind these structures. They will watch the current for incoming food. Walleye's will usually settle back further from the structure while smallies will be tight against it. Cast crawfish colored cranks upstream and bring them down around these boils. If that isn't working, try using shad or panfish imitators. If all else fails, smallies love tubes! If the current is too strong, put extra weight on it to get it down quickly.

[Botte]

Can never go wrong fishing under and around bridge pilings. Smallies are best known for liking rocky bottoms. So if you see rocky shoreline or rock or shale cliff banks thats' a place to hit. They also like sharp angled banks or pools that go from shallow to deep quickly.   

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

I always look for rip-rap lining the banks and bridge pilings. I run a crank parallel at different depths and once I get bites followup with a tube, craw or worm.

[BigMouthBasstard]

Thank you for the advice Guys.

[NateFollmer]

No Problem. I don't know how hot it is where you are at the moment, but right now in my area the smallies are in the middle of the river and are holding in the deeper pools. During the morning and the evening, the topwater is on fire!

[BigMouthBasstard]

I'm in northern Wisconsin and it just got done raining 22 out of 30 days this month. Last night the air temp was 32 degrees and the water is about 45 degrees. Not very good fishing weather to say the least. I fished in IL this past weekend and it was exact opposite weather; 107 degrees 85 degree water. It was only about 7 hrs away.