If you clicked on this story thinking it’s a how-to about dealing with fishing pressure, you’re maybe 33% correct. This is mostly a venting session filled with observations and atrocities I witness each season. Fishing for a partial living is far from glamorous, and with it comes a lot of dirt if you know
Beginning in early September, we drift shallow flats and beach shorelines. While most boats are still positioned around deep weedlines and offshore structure, we concentrate on the sand flats and inside weedlines of shorelines. The fishing improves with each passing day, and gets really good by late month. We zig and zag with the
September is a month of transition and changing of seasons. With shortening daylight and colder nights, the entire food chain reacts and acclimates to these changes. On many clear water fisheries with sand bottom composition, trophy smallmouth return the shallows where they are most comfortable in cooling waters, and roam sand beaches.
During the past decade, I’ve prioritized learning and focusing my time on open water fishing tactics for smallmouth bass. Prior to then, this was something I hadn’t done much of. What spurred me to this was the realization of how lakes and smallmouth fisheries are cyclical and slowly evolving. Lakes that might have been
Frogs are fantastic baits in heavy vegetation. Utilizing a surface-running soft plastic frog around lily pads and atop mats of slop is exhilarating as bass come out of the water to engulf the lure. The distinctive feature of frogs is that their hooks and riggings are weedless and there are no protrusions or sharp
