Largemouth VS Smallmouth 2

Well it is no surprise that most feel that Largemouth will usually beat smallmouth in a tourney, or that just like me a few of you believe in the Bucketmouth Fairy.

Having fished Smallies for a much longer time I have to tell you that I am a little puzzled. At so many weighins, teams seem to most often bring in just all LM or SM. Not very often do you see a combination. It appears to a Bass tourney rookie like me that the best limits could or should have both(18-20#s is still the same weight no matter what species) . The only advantage I see in LM is the kicker fish.

Right now anyway it seems like a 4-4.5 LM are more common or at least are caught more often, but I am starting to catch more and more smallies in the middle and high threes. I know the bigger ones are around, because when the May run comes it is not uncommon a day or two during the peak week to stay right in that 4 lb+ range most of the day with many of the fish being males.

So here’s my questions? Do most of you spend a lot of time other than cold water periods prefishing for both or do you usually zone in on Largemouth? Do any of you see the same pattern of the size and numbers of larger smallies ? Well I have to run to do some ice fishing but I really would appreciate any
comments on my comments or questions above. I know I asked the question in a tourney frame , buy it is obviously a question for everyone.

Tourney fishing.
I will start this off by saying this is my opinion and this topic can be fiercely debated.

I will start by saying I do prefish for smallies and largemouth both in my days leading up to the tourney. The general rules are that if you are fishing smallies you are typically fishing a school of them of which many are of the same year class resulting in many fish of similar caliber. This being said if you are on a 3lb school and a f fish limit with 16ish lbs will win than making poor tourney decisions about running around to find other fish is a poor idea. You need to stay on your fish and grind out the limit you are confident in barring any execution problems. In this context you are fishing for 6 bites in the 3-4 lb range which under normal summer conditions can very well take you 5 hours to complete. I am sure you will run through a pile of 1’s and 2’s but it’s the 6 bites that will win you the tourney. This same mentality will prevail with Largemouth. If you are spending your time running around looking at spots trying to get a fish here and one there you will not typically win. If you have all week on the water you can perhaps develop a milk run and weigh in a solid limit however in my experience I have found the more my bait is in the water the better odds I have. When you see limits with both Largemouth and Smallmouth, it is typically from a 2 pronged attach. The fisherman starts off trying to get the morning smallie bite since this is the most apt time for the bigger fish to feed.
If you have ever looked into how the biggest fish in an ecosystem feed they are typically underneath the school feeding on the scraps left behind and typically don’t chase much but can be triggered into striking a top water plug. After the hour windo and high shies they typically move to fishing overhead cover in the form of weeds, timber, and the other.
This post is starting to go on so many different ways I will cut it off here and chine in with follow-ups.
Jc

Mt. Man- in a reply to a tourney situation for me on whether to target Smallies or LM. I have usally found that I can better target the smallies than the LM. Most of my spots that I like to fish year round have many smallies. Now with saying that many of the smallies will be from the 1.5 to 2.5 # range. Normally not near enough to win or place in a tournament. However if fishing like the BFL, is a great way to get points anyhow. And sometimes that what or how I will fish. Get that quick limit and then hopefully go for big fish. Now before anyone one says anything next….yes I mean cull.. The BFL went back to that. Tommy Sanders if your listening…..shhh…lol… Anyways I am starting to beleive that if you fish a tournament in the pre-spawn stage that you can bring in a respectable bag or even place with a sack of smallies. I have been lucky enough to pick up a few 4 pounders. I again, think its all on how you decide to fish. If you need or prefer points. I’d say smallies… but if your going for a check better find LM….Easier said than done I know. The LaCrosse Pool has several nice spawning spots for smallies I have found. A friend of mine took me to a spot 4 yrs ago when I first started in the BFL. The smallies we caught all were about 3 pounds. They were in transition from going to spawn to coming back from spawning. To this day, I can go to that spot (timing needs to be right of course), and catch a quick bag of 2 1/2 to 3 # fish in less than 10 cast. The last Bob’s bait and Tackle Open I fished (before the Team Supreme moved in) I had a limit before my partne had his rods outta the locker…no fish story here…My mistake of the tourney was to leave after an hour of catching fish and trying to locate the “kicker”, which I never did. Should have stuck to the smallies…But that was a few years back…Now I would have stuck to that pattern… So am I way off base to think that maybe someday soon a springtime toureny can be won with a big sack of smallies.(from the Lacrosse Pool)???????

I watched the weigh in at the Fountain City Days tournament the last couple of years, and bags of all smallies placed well there.

In fact, if my memory serves, 2 years ago I think a bag of 6 fish, 22 pounds, all smallies may have won it. Don’t quote me on that though, I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Also the tournament is Mid-August.

I think Jeremy hit on something. Smallies are a schooling fish, often by year class. I fyou can find a school of big fish, you can rack up weight fast.

I think I just leaped ahead three years in Bass tourney strategy. I only have one problem with drawing my picture of Smallies.
The “school thing” not if they school but the comments about year class has me intrigued. With the exception of the May run and OCT-NOV., I rarely grab more than 1 or at most 2 tourney quality Smallmouth at one location. More importantly they are usually there with large walleye, and northern, with few or no other Bass biting. I’d like to say that it is because I move on so quickly but I sometimes spend most of a day on a location because of the multispecies action and rarely grab another tourney quality smallie. So I guess milk run is the best way to explain it , except it is actually more like milk circle since I usualy make the 6-8 stops two or three times in 6 -7 hours. Past experience tells me that if I do that the one or two that didn’t bite early may very well bite at midday or afternoon correlating with the second and third stops.

I’m not gonna do it to Jeremy in a Team Supreme event,(unless he says I can)LOL, but at a bass tourney or two this year that I enter with my wife or kids for fun, we will aim for smallies only and see how we do.

Lawrence,

How do I tell you this without making you put all those wonderful smallies in buckets wile fishing from an anchoring position… Well here it is. Smallies are a schooling fish. This means they take cues from the school and that there is communication between schooling members. As you know fish can not talk however they can release pheromones in the water. Have you ever noticed how fish seem to turn on… A feeding pheromone most reasonably has been released stimulating the surrounding or schooling members to actively feed. Now you boat that first beauty of 4 lbs while you are guiding. You take your photo and release this fish into the water to join the school. This fish is now releasing negative / fear pheromones into the water signaling the entire school that something is wrong shutting down the feeding activity until the fear pheromone dissipates. You still get but by lb fish because they are either wanderers and or they are juvenile enough that they are not working as part of the school rather just following there lead. The mentions of year class play a significant role in the base “school” not lumping all fish in to that definition. I have found that year classes play a signifigant role in schools while not all fish are cookie cutters you will often find smaller fish are often considered bait and the larger fish often dictate that the smaller school find other feeding habitat. Clear as mud?
Jc

That is an interesting read, JC. I have never heard of the pheromone phenomena before. I have often noticed when crappie fishing that I can catch & release the fish, but if I sting one and lose it they all shut down. Do you suppose that being out of the water disorients the fish to the point where it does not spook the school, or maybe it does not return immediately to the school after release?

It would seem to me that current (in river systems) would dictate certain elements of pheromone emission. When a fish rejoins a school, will it necessarily reenter the same area that it came from? If so, it would make sense to fish schooling critters while working upstream.

Also would be interesting to now if other non-schooling fish will key on those same pheromone emmissions, even though they are only colocated by coincidence.

I would like to thank you for the helpful information Jeremy, but I just assumed it was because there weren’t enough of the bigguns to make up a school. I guess the bass juice doesn’t affect the northern , and walleye I keep catching. I’m trying to figure out then why the catch & release releases the juice and the fight doesn’t?

I’m just curious why the juice thing doesn’t affect Bucketmouth the same way? Its not uncommon to catch and release 25 – 30 in a 100 foot circle and have them keep right on biting, juvies and bigger critter both?

Some where in my distant past I remember somebody telling me
that I shouldn’t touch my bait and jig until I had washed my hands after releasing a fish because of this juice thing. Makes a guy wonder how many times it cost a guy fish by not paying attention to the warning.

The classic Debate … Smallmouth vs Largemouth. It is my opinion that a 4 lb smallmouth weighs exactly the same amount as a 4 lb Largemouth. I often have and always do target both species in Prefishing. Come tournament day I fish my biggest fish to try to win the tourney. There are big enough fish in either species to win consistently on the river. Fish the fish you can catch, let the scale tell the rest of the story.

I have been swamped and unable to reply..
Deterred but not forgotten.
jc

Jedsall that must mean you and I were the only two who voted for “smallmouth can always win” in the poll or Maybe Nitro. Anyway to be honest I really have a hard time not switching to Bucketmouth when the Summer lumber and or grass bite starts. Especially on pool 6(grass) and pool 8(lumber).

Every once in a while the “Bucketmouth Fairy” whispers into my ear “Doesn’t this seem to be a creek day” and then I forget that smallies even exist.

Nitro if I would ever in a lifetime be able to catch in one tourney the 6 biggest post spawn smallies I caught last year on 8 & 9 I would weigh-in just over 25 3/4 #s.

I watched a young local fisherman pull a staggering weight of egg filled fish last spring on pool 9 , and was lucky enough to pass the weight listed above myself that day and the next. I mentioned it to JC when it happened.

More realistic and interesting though I have had about 5 conversations in the last year with guide customers telling me that they have found in visits to pool 8 and 9 that we have the same two groups of Smallmouth that they find on their lakes. The fish that prefer shallow water and the fish that prefer deep holes all year long. The deeper fish are almost invariably larger and fatter. I will have the opportunity to see some of those locations both on river and at their home lakes this year and “see what we can see”.

Just curious though do many of you find yourself catching smallmouth year round in 20-30 foot holes. If you do are they bigger. Two parties have even said they are colored differently than the fish that live most of the year shallower water.????

Mt Man: Very seldom do I fish any fish in deeper water like 20 – 30 ft. Guess I’m lazy. However I will fish over deeper water like that when it is close to say a flat or bluff. Somewhere close to shallow water. Then however, for the most part I find that most of the fish I catch will be suspended. I would guess that these are the fish that move back and forth to the shallows for a quick lunch. Sometime I can catch those fish suspended on topwater. Or close anyways. I know that I need to fish deeper but I (personally) have a hard time doing that with currant. It’s different if I fish a lake system. But thats me. Something I need to get better at. One not on spawning smallies. A few years ago I took my boater into a boat harbor and got him a nice check catching bedding smallies. About a 3 pound average. I myself caught to nice 4 lb ers. However since that time the boat harbor has constitantly been adding slips and changing things around. And as you can probably guess the fishing has changed. I still make the time to see if the fishing will improve..but no luck so far. I do agree with you guys that smallies can win any tourney. I think that the pre-spawn time is the most likely time, but I have caught nice ones all summer. For summer time smallies I have better luck fishing shallower waters with a little faster current. Mainly wingdams..no surprize huh…I have my few that always seem to hold very nice smallies. Usually 2 to 3 pounders with at least 1 kicker. If I can get a bag of those I will go for it. But thats me. Will I place with that..doubt it. But thats what I like to do. What kinds of deep holes are you talking about and how to they fish them??????????

They aren’t all shallow, just the easy ones. Find some structure in 20 feet of water, you better check your drag and hold on to your rod. If you get bit, you wont need to check the fish on a bumb board

Jim:

What do you catch them on in that deep of water? Jigs I assume? Carolina Rigs?

Usually fish a jig when I go deep. You got to think like a crayfish.