Entry 85-5

Roger Stegall's 10 Tricks For Boating Big Smallmouths

Smallmouth Fishing After The Spawn

Editor's Note: Roger Stegall of Iuka, Mississippi, one of the nation's leading smallmouth bass guides, is Mr. Smallmouth on Pickwick Lake on the Alabama/Tennessee/Mississippi border. Stegall shows his clients when and where to catch the big ones. Smallmouth weighing over 5 pounds are common, 6- and 7-pound smallmouths are caught frequently, and every now and then you may catch an 8 pounder or better. Stegall has been smallmouth fishing for 20 years, and his personal best record is an 8-pounder. Each year Stegall and his clients will catch and release 150 smallmouth that weigh at least 5-pounds each. This week he'll give us the 10 secrets for catching monster-sized smallmouth.

Stegall: I won a tournament using this tactic I'm going to describe. When big smallmouth come off the beds, they move out to humps in the middle of the lake. I started throwing a Series 5 Strike King crankbait. A Series 5 is a big crankbait. Most smallmouth fishermen will tell you that big smallmouth want little baits, but I've learned that's not necessarily true. Using the Series 5, I caught four smallmouth that weighed a total of 15 pounds 2 ounces and won the tournament against 183 professional fishermen.

Most everything that writers have written about smallmouth talks about using little baits. You have to remember that most smallmouth articles are written from a northern perspective. However, I've found that big smallmouth will eat big baits. The Tennessee River that runs through Alabama and then north through Mississippi and into Arkansas is the southernmost range for smallmouth bass. Our area has bigger smallmouth than anglers will find in the north.

One of my favorite colors is chartreuse with a black back, and you also can bet on watermelon shad. With these two colors, I believe I can catch big smallmouth if I can find them regardless of the color of the water.

Here's one of my favorite fall tactics. When I locate shad minnows in the back ends of pockets and coves in 6- to 8-feet of water, and I can see smallmouth coming up and busting minnows, I'll use a 3X lizard in either the watermelon or pumpkinseed colors on a Carolina-rig with a -ounce sinker and fish it under where the bass are blowing up on the surface.

Most people will fish a top water lure, a jerkbait or a small crankbait that goes just under the surface when they see bass breaking. But, I've learned that the biggest fish in any school usually will stay on the bottom and let the small fish cut and kill the baitfish. As the injured bait falls to the bottom, the big fish will lazily swim over and pick up the bait that's struggling on the bottom. Just remember when you see smallmouth breaking on top that there will be more and bigger smallmouth on the bottom. One of the problems with using this tactic however is that you'll catch some largemouth mixed in with the smallmouth bass.




 

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