With the Bassmaster Elite Series on Lake Champlain this week, it got me thinking about some good ol’ fashioned northern smallmouth fishing. If you’re not familiar, Lake Champlain sits on the New York and Vermont border, and even runs up into the Canadian province of Quebec (not all that far from Montreal).
Often called the “6th Great Lake,” it’s an absolutely massive body of water that boasts over 275,000 acres of surface area. But most importantly… well, at least for our purposes… it’s a world-class bass fishery. Easily one of the best smallmouth lakes in the country, and one that features some great largemouth fishing as well, it’s the epitome of northern-style bass fishing. The lake also features walleye, northern pike, chain pickerel, brown bullhead, channel catfish, yellow perch, lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, steelhead, brown trout, and more.
And while I haven’t personally covered too much smallmouth fishing, I think I might actually like catching smallies more than bucketheads. They fight harder, they’re more aggressive, they blast out of the water when you’re fighting them, and they’re peeling drag on lighter spinning gear… it’s just a different animal than shallow-water largemouth fishing. And as someone who lives in Wisconsin, I spend a ton of time smallmouth fishing, especially in the spring and fall.
So if you want to absolutely wreck some northern smallies right now, you need an arsenal that covers the entire water column. These are my top five best baits to have tied on when you’re in search of some beautiful bronzebacks. A few honorable mentions: hair jigs, spy bait, topwater walking bait or poppers. Topwater can catch giants, but if the conditions aren’t right, you might get skunked completely. I’ve also caught a few on urchin baits, but haven’t spent enough time with it to fully recommend quite yet.
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5. The Jerkbait
Most guys put the jerkbait away after the spring pre-spawn, which is a massive mistake on a northern natural lake. I fish one year-around in Wisconsin. When smallmouth are suspended high in the water column, a jerkbait will pull fish from a mile away in that crystal-clear water. It can be a great search bait in the summer months, or you can use it to try and fire up a school on forward facing sonar.
The Strategy: You can’t fish it as slowly as you do in the spring. In the warmer water of late summer, you need to work it aggressively. Burn it, snap it hard, and keep the pauses incredibly short. You are trying to trigger a pure reaction strike from fish that are actively hunting.
Baits:
Colors: Northern Lights, Table Rock, Hankie Pankie
Megabass Ito Vision 110 – $24.99
Colors: Elegy Bone, GG Megabass Kinkuro
Colors: Ghost Ayu, OZ Shad, Pro Blue
4. The Classic Tube Jig
Before forward-facing sonar took over the world, the tube jig was the undisputed heavyweight champion of northern smallmouth fishing. When the invasive round gobies took over many of the larger lakes, the tube became a mandatory shallow-to-mid-depth weapon.
The Strategy: Throw it over the shallow, rocky shoals and gravel flats in 3 to 15 feet of water and drag it across the bottom. When it bumps into a rock, snap it loose and let it spiral back down. That erratic, spiraling fall perfectly mimics a fleeing goby or crawfish.
Baits:
Great Lakes Finesse Juvy Craw Tube – $6.99
Colors: Motor Oil, Black, Brown Pumpkin
3. The Ned Rig
When the northern winds completely dies, the lake turns into a sheet of glass, and the sun is beating down, the bite can get incredibly tough. When those shallow cruisers get spooky and refuse everything else, the Ned rig is your ultimate bailout bait. When it’s that calm and clear, don’t be afraid to use your eyes to try and find them… mark some groups on your graph and go back to them later.
The Strategy: The magic of the Ned rig is the ElaZtech/TPE plastic, which floats and makes the bait stand straight up off the bottom. You’re going to want a pretty light jig head depending on how deep you’re fishing,
There is a few different ways to fish it. Pitch it to isolated boulders in 3 to 15 feet of water and literally just dead-stick it. Don’t shake it, don’t drag it. Just let the natural water movement do the work. Or, you can drag and hop it here and there along gravel bars and shell beds. Sometimes you can even slowly retrieve and keep it continuously scooting along the bottom. Gotta try them and see what works.
Baits:
Colors: Green Pumpkin Goby, Goby Bryant, Green Pumpkin
Rapala Crush City Salted Ned Roll – $6.99
Colors: Green Pumpkin Blue, Baby Bass, Black
Great Lakes Finesse Skirted Ned Bug – $6.99
Colors: Matt Black, Matte Green Pumpkin Brown, Spicy Melon
2. The Swimbait / Jighead Minnow
If you are pushing out deep to scope offshore roamers in 20 to 40 feet of water, this is the modern-day gold standard. When smallmouth are suspended and feeding exclusively on alewives and shiners, this is how you snipe them. Of course, you can always work a small swimbait shallow too. Some of my biggest smallmouth ever have come on a small swimbait over a shallow grass flat.
The Strategy: Cast it past the fish you mark on your sonar, let it pendulum down to just above their eye level (never below them), and simply reel it straight through the water column. A slow, steady retrieve with zero extra action looks exactly like a clueless, solitary alewife separated from the school.
Baits:
If you have Forward Facing Sonar, shaking a minnow can be great in colder water. Just put it on your favorite ball head jig.
Great Lakes Finesse Drop Minnow – $6.99
Colors: Watermelon Pearl, Green Pumpkin, Crush Shad
Rapala Crush City Mooch Minnow – $6.99
Colors: Electric Shad, Albino Shad, Shad
For a bigger profile, you can try the Freeloader.
Rapala Crush City Freeloader – $6.99
Colors: Electric Shad, Albino Shad, Shad
And if you want a good paddle tail option there’s a handful that I like. You can’t go wrong with an old fashioned Keitech, but I just seem to have the most success on the Mayor and the Great Lakes Finesse as of late. Don’t be afraid to put it on an underspin too… those are deadly.
Rapala Crush City Mayor 3″ – $6.99
Colors: Electric Shad, Shad, Pro Blue Red Pearl
Keitech Swing Impact Fat – 2.8, 3.3″ – $7.69
Colors: Pro Blue Red Pearl, Electric Shad, Ayu
Great Lakes Finesse Dropkick Shad – $6.99
Colors: Green Pumpkin Shad, Gizzard Shad, Shiner
1. The Drop-Shot Rig
It simply does not matter if you are pitching to a visible rock in 6 feet of water or dropping vertically onto a main-lake hump in 35 feet of water, the drop-shot is the most lethal smallmouth rig on planet Earth, and it is mandatory for northern smallmouth fishing. I generally am using a 1/8-ounce to 1/2-ounce tungsten drop-shot weight with a size 1 or 1/0 finesse hook.
The Strategy: Drag it over the shallow reefs, drop it on deep rock piles, or pitch it at offshore roamers. You can even drop it along grass edges and weed lines. Let the weight maintain contact with the bottom and allow the bait to naturally shimmy. I tend to give it a lot more pops and movement with largemouth, but with smallmouth, they seem to like that subtle natural movement. Don’t work it much. It is the one setup you should absolutely never put down.
Baits:
Roboworm Straight Tail Worm – $3.97 – $4.99
Colors: Aaron’s Magic, Margarita Mutilator, Morning Dawn
Berkley MaxScent Flat Worm – $14.99
Colors: Green Pumpkin, Black, Gobyashi,
Great Lakes Finesse Drop Worm – $6.99
Colors: Morning Dawn, Green Pumpkin Purple, Matte Black
Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm 3″ – $4.79
Colors: Goby, Natural Shad, Smallmouth Magic
