Tips to Catch Ontario Smallmouth Bass
Sometimes called brown bass, bronzeback and smallie, the smallmouth bass is a true favorite among Lady Evelyn anglers which pound for pound has a reputation for putting up a fight that rivals any other popular freshwater gamefish. They are either digging down deep with insane desperation or flying out of the water. Plus no other freshwater fish jumps like a fighting smallmouth bass.
Smallmouth bass are omnivorous in the food they consume. The smallmouth bass is an excellent predator feeding mostly on fish, crustaceans and aquatic and terrestrial insects. In waters where crayfish are abundant however crayfish frequently comprise over two-thirds of the smallmouth's diet. Now that we know what they feed on, here are some tips when fishing for old bronzeback in Lady Evelyn waters.
The most obvious spots to fish for feeding smallies are rock shoals and drop off points. However, they can also be found in deeper water where the concentration of feeder fish are more abundant. A quality depth finder is invaluable in finding the best structure.
Lady Evelyn Lake has excellent smallmouth bass fishing. Lady Evelyn is a rocky and nutrient rich Canadian Shield lake, which is the prime habitat for smallmouth bass. Rocky points, shoals, islands, waterfalls and mouths of feeder-streams all hold great populations of smallmouth bass. Their main food here is minnows, leaches and crayfish, which Lady Evelyn Lake has an endless supply.
In our lake, you will come across schools of smaller smallmouth in the 1/2 to 2-pound range. It's a lot of fun catching bass after bass when you find these schools. To be truly impressed with our bass fishery, you need to find prime areas where there are no schools of smallmouth bass. The reason being that large smallmouth bass over 3-pounds in our lake usually travel in mating pairs and they are very territorial and keep the smaller bass out. With this in mind, you can come across a school of bass or a point where they are congregating and catch 20 or 30 bass in a few hours. To get the big ones, you have to sacrifice numbers and with great patience, quietly keep working a prime shoal or rocky point. The big bass are big because they are smart and it can take 20 minutes or longer using different lures or live baits to get them to hit.
To cover large areas of water, diving crankbaits like Cotton Cordell's Rattlin Spot and the Rapala Shad Rap in silver or crawfish patterns are quite effective. When fishing shallow rock shoals, white and yellow spinnerbaits as well as shallow diving crankbaits have proven deadly. In deeper waters, a 1/4 oz. to 5/8 oz. jig head tipped with chartreuse, yellow or white Mister Twister grubs are also effective. Slowly bouncing these jigs off rocky bottoms will surely entice the most wary bronzeback. If fishing deep water in late summer or early fall, try bouncing a worm colored tube jig off the bottom. When smallmouth do go deep, they seem to like the 30 to 40 foot depth range.
Yes .... Those Old Secret Methods Still Work!
Forty years ago an article was published in a magazine called Fishing Facts (no longer being published today) that described this method. Since then I have used it many different places on many different species of fish. What could be more simple than a large nightcrawler and a tiny hook? But there are a few things that you should know to make this rig even more effective.
First off, this is meant for 4# to 6# test monofilament line so that the worm will sink at a more natural rate. That means that you will also need to use a 1000 series reel with a very dependable drag designed for lightweight fishing like a Shimano Stradic or Stella and a medium rod with a fast action tip and strong shaft. This rig works best using a tiny size 1 fine wire ultra point hook.
I'll bet I know what you are thinking about now! How am I going to catch a big smallmouth or walleye on that tiny hook without it bending or breaking my line? That's why you are using a spinning reel with a good quality drag. If you have the drag set too tight you will bend the hook or break the 6# test line. Start out with a very loose drag and as you are fighting the fish slowly tighten it until he can bend the rod fully but the fish can still pull the drag. I have caught many 20# hybrid striped bass with this same rig and only ever lost one extremely large striper that I was unable to chase down.
Tip: I have personally used this method to catch both walleye and smallmouth at Lady Evelyn on the hottest mid-summer dead calm afternoons when I could see the schools on my Humminbird and nothing else that I tried would work. Once I could get that first fish to take the worm (it takes a lot of patience as the weightless worm slowly sinks to the school!), the other fish all get very competitive and started hitting also. After that, the feeding frenzy sometimes lasts a couple hours or until you get tired of catching fish.
