Smallmouth help? / northeast help

[jolley]

I have two spots there that have like gravel points/Jeddies that go from 3-4 foot strait down to like 40 ft then out to like 100 ft. I have caught a few little smallies all around here but haven't really night fished it much. Would these be good places to try night fishing?

 

Also when night fishing Rock flats or points at night would you anchor up and spend a good while fishing it with topwater and other baits kinda waiting on the fish or would you hit and run it??

 

That area sounds perfect. If they are hungry they will be there for sure. Hit it at night.

 

I would hit it and move on to the next spot, if they are relatively close spots I would cycle right through them and definitely hit the first spot again before quitting. They might not have been there yet the first time. Many times I've hit the first spot on the way back to dock and ended the night with the big fish caught right there where I started.

[wiswimbait]

I have two spots there that have like gravel points/Jeddies that go from 3-4 foot strait down to like 40 ft then out to like 100 ft. I have caught a few little smallies all around here but haven't really night fished it much. Would these be good places to try night fishing?

Sounds like a good place to start. Find piles of bigger boulders on them spots during the day and mark them for low light. Don't be afraid to fish during the heat of the day either. The bigger smallies with be on the best rock piles on main lake points or humps when they aren't suspended over deeper water. At least thats been my experience here in the upper midwest. I haven't done much deeper water fishing for them because if I hit them right I can always catch them in shallow water just a matter of timing. 13 feet seems to be a magic depth for them for some reason too. If they are active and they have big rocks to hide behind they can be pretty shallow too especially if there is the wind blowing waves into shore and/or shade.

[smalliebigs]

I just did a google on that lake, and saw there are 5 municipalities that draw water from that lake (Canandaigue, Gorham, Newark, Palmyra, Rushville), at a max of 1 to 6 million gallons per day for each. Usually the hotter it is the more they draw. One of them is found at these coords, 42.832186,-76.97477 Looks pretty cool on google or bing (birds eye) view, multiple big lines sticking out into the lake.

 

Usually intake pipes up north are buried and run out from a pump house before coming into the water water that is deep enough the pipe never gets crushed by ice. Sometimes an underwater tower protects the end of the pipe. These intake pipes are often fish magnets if you can find them.

[colbypearson]

Hey Colby I know your from Oregon or something but catch alot of smallies. So you chime in too

 

As a general rule for smallies, they typically prefer hard cover such as rock, wood, gravel etc.. I rarely catch them in grass or willow type trees but I do get them around that stuff just not in it. There are certain types of structure where smallies specifically set up to eat baitfish trout, or anything. In the high mountain lakes I often fish its almost to easy to intersect with big feeding smallies its just hard to get them to commit, structure like bridge pilings, main lake points, standing timber along channels or anything that will mix the bass in with the forage is a good starting point as long as you keep in mind that smallies for me atleast are a little bit more active than the largemouth I fish for and they dont like to be as deep in cover as largemouth, instead of casting a few direct casts toward a piece of cover for largemouth, when smallie fishin I start farther out and fish each piece of cover as if it has imaginary extensions, especially under bridges if shade lines are present.

As far as colors I like to keep it natural but I also want it to pop, so colors like ghost rainbow where its still somewhat natural but it is actually completely off the wall and bright. Recently I was fishing the rising son top hook rigged bottom hook style in clearlake ghost and lavendar and was doing well, I really like these two patterns and have high hopes for them. Another thing about smallies is they are weird dude sometimes you change some stupid aspect of your bait and kill them, take that away and they wont even look at it. When they wont eat soft baits I like triple trouts or freestyle baits sometimes they really key in on erratic presentations, cast to a piece of cover and just make the bait spazz out sometimes you want fast movement over a long distance, other times you want rapid movement without covering much distance. I have caught quite a few smallies on wake jr's also and almost all of mine came as the rings settle just after the cast.

 

In short try all sorts of stuff specifically on hard cover, or farther off/around soft cover if thats whats abundant.

 

If you are on a lake with trout or similar species look for the cover that is closest to the channels or places where the trout frequent, no matter the depth if there is cover near these areas in the top parts of the water column to around the thermocline in particular there should be some fish on it especially this time of year. Maybe look to see if there is any running water coming into the place you fish also.

 

It's all relative this is just what I gather from smallies here.

[schmith12]

If the weeds are not up to the top, you should be money over those flats.

 

Gonna be very dependent on water temp and shade this time of year in my experience. That big fish I caught last weekend was up shallow under cover, but was only about 10yds from a 20ft dropoff.

 

If those weed flats bump up against any significant drops, I would focus there.

 

Your smallmouths are gonna typically be deeper than the largies this time of year (around here anyway). Also not a bad thing to find some current in the lake, feeder streams or springs running in.

 

Both species, early and later would be a good starting point on unfamiliar water. You're typically going to find them more shallow and less spread out.

 

I know all this is kinda general, but that's about all I can offer you on somewhere I've never been.

 

Speed, dude I couldn't agree more, I have a lake if huge drops into 200ft and if there is a weedflat near a drop off its money.