Entry 55-1
Roger Stegall's Secrets For Catching Smallmouth On Pickwick Lake
How To Find Summertime Pickwick Giants
Editor's Note: Roger Stegall, of Iuka, Mississippi, has guided on Pickwick Lake on the Mississippi,/ Tennessee/ Alabama border for 16 years and has fished the lake for 27 years. He's seen an 8 3/4-pound smallmouth come from Pickwick Lake, and he's also weighed in a 5-fish limit of smallmouth that weighed 27 pounds, 6 ounces. "I saw Leon Tidwell and a friend of his catch a 10-fish limit that weighed 52 pounds," says Stegall. "I believe the next world-record smallmouth will come from Pickwick Lake. Two 10-pound smallmouth have been caught from Pickwick in the last year."
Stegall: In Pickwick Lake you'll find clumps and ledges off the main river channel. Many of these underwater humps are actually ancient Indian mounds that were on the landscape before the lake was impounded. To excavate these mounds, archaeologists dug trenches through the center of the mounds. The mounds, which you can locate on your depth finder. Oftentimes there will be a drop-off on the top of the mound and then the mound will reappear and drop off again. There also are hills that drop off sharply in the bottom of the lake, and the smallmouth bass usually will relate to the hills and drop-offs closest to the main river channel, especially when current is pulled through the lake. One of the reasons why Pickwick Lake is such a productive summertime smallmouth lake is because the lake has been designed for hydroelectric power. Therefore, when air conditioners are running in the summer, an amount of current is pulled and pushed through the lake from the dam.
A variety of lures produce smallmouth on Pickwick in the summertime, but my number-one lure choice is the Strike King 3/4-ounce Premier spinner bait. I prefer this bait with a chartreuse-and-white or a solid chartreuse skirt with a single willow-leaf blade. I don't use a trailer hook or any type of trailer when I fish this spinner bait on humps and ledges in the summertime. I'll cast the bait and let it fall on a tight line all the way to the bottom. When it hits the bottom, I pull it up, reel it four or five cranks and then let it fall back and hit the bottom again. I use this hopping motion all the way back to the boat. The real key to this tactic is being able to feel the blade on the spinner bait turn the entire time it's in the water.
If I don't catch smallmouth using this tactic, I'll fish the same areas with a Carolina-rigged 3X Lizard. I'll either use a watermelon seed-colored lizard or a pumpkin seed-colored lizard. I fish both lizards with a chartreuse tail. I'll use a 1-ounce slip-sinker up the line and a 6-foot leader. That longer leader allows the lizard to float off the bottom and have more action than I'll get from a shorter leader.
Then if I can't get the bass to bite the Carolina rig, I'll use the Strike King Series 5 or Series 6 crankbaits. My favorite crankbait color for big smallmouth is the watermelon shad. My number-two color is chartreuse with a black back. I use the Series 6 if the water is 10-feet deep or more, and I fish with the Series 5 crankbait in water that is 6- to 10-feet deep. I use a slow-retrieve reel to crank the bait down to the bottom. Then I vary my retrieve and let the bass tell me how they want the bait. Once I've determined the retrieve that the big smallmouth want, I'll use that same retrieve on other humps and ledges in the lake.
My other go-to bait for big smallmouth is a Denny Brauer or an Elite jig in a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce size with a twin-tail trailer behind the jig. My favorite colors are black-and-blue, sapphire blue or blue and metal flake. I hop the jig off the bottom, let it fall back on a slack line, hop it up and let it fall back again. All of these techniques will catch big smallmouth on Pickwick during the summer months.
Another technique that produces giant smallmouth during the summer at Pickwick is fishing Strike King's Midnight Special spinner bait at night on the humps and ledges. I prefer either red-and-black or black-and-blue skirts on the Midnight Special. Solid black also pays off in the dark. I fish the spinner bait at night just like I will a jig in cold weather. I lift it off the bottom with my rod tip and then let it fall back to the bottom, much like I fish a Texas-rigged worm.
