Baits and Big Smallmouth

[WayneC]

It's been a great year for big smallmouth on Lake St. Clair even though the tournament total weights don't necessarily reflect that. Here's one of many 4 1/2 lb. smallies caught by Tom Billings from Indiana on a Xtreme Bass Tackle St. Clair Goby NFT™ drop-shot tube:

You can find St. Clair Goby NFT™ at www.xtremebasstackle.com

[djkimmel]

I thought the tournament weights were really good for the first month of the season. Have they gone down recently? I've heard mostly good reports of bigger catches of fat smallmouth from the majority of anglers who are fishing out there regularly?

[WayneC]

It's spotty but on par or better than last year from what I can tell and there is no way to know what baits were used to generate these totals (topic: "Baits and Big Smallmouth"). Got spoiled a few years ago so that's where that comment comes from. One small example would be:

Top Five Finishers Total Weight

Walmart BFL

2012 June 23rd 108.32 lbs
2013 Aug. 3rd    92.41 lbs
2014 Aug. 2nd   98.42 lbs

Cash For Bass
2012 July 12th  106.28 lbs
2014 July 26th  100.39 lbs

Monsterquest
2013 June 28th   98.44 lbs

This is hardly conclusive and I'm still gathering numbers. I tried to keep the dates as close as possible because the weights typically go up over the course of the season. There are examples that disprove this as well but there is a trend. Also, I didn't adjust the numbers to exactly match the difference between ounces and hundreths of an ounce so the numbers may be off on the margins but the method is consistent and the trends should be as well. I'll work on that!

I agree though...there have been reports all season long from anglers running in to huge smallies.

I'm hoping to have fun with this post and get some more big fish up here in the next couple of days.

[Mini]

Cash for Bass and Monsterquest are in pounds and ounces.

You results are quite skewed.

[WayneC]

Right on! As advertised Mini. Just trying to get an answer to Dan on the fly. I'll tidy it up and do a first rate analysis as soon as the season slows down. Thanks for noticing!

[WayneC]

Tuesday, August 19th

We had to work hard to get the bass that we were looking for but Mr. Big Fish, Frank Keller put his shallow flat magic to work and came up with this smallmouth that was pushing four pounds. The big fish bait was a Red Dirt spinnerbait called "Goldie." (shown below)

[WayneC]

We worked through the small bass to get to the bigger ones today. The best bass came on a crankbait but the better bass came on the Xtreme Bass Tackle St. Clair Goby NFT tubes in drop-shot tube and 5" tube. One is in the 3 1/2 pound class and the other is an easy four with a big girth.

[WayneC]

Going back to basics...  Of course the swim bait craze is legit and a lot of great numbers of smallmouth are caught on them and good size too. Dial this back 20 years or so and we used less sophisticated versions of them with a lot of success also. In this case my best smallmouth this season to date (well over five pouinds) came on this single tail grub in pearl.

[WayneC]

Many times it takes a new bait two or three years to establish itself. A lot of that has to do with us learning more about how it can help us and in what situations. Last weekend James Willis stuck with the Xtreme Bass Tackle™ Fusion LE™ tube throughout the day and it paid off. A 4 lb. 1 oz. smallmouth caught in 11 feet of water. Way to go James! That's some great information to know.

[WayneC]

Under tough September conditions in the St. Clair River we were able to pick up this 4 lb. 9 oz. smallmouth on a White Swim-X™. It came on a reaction strike off of a seawall.

[WayneC]

Drew Six hooked up with this smallmouth (over 3 1/2 pounds) by using a spinbait like the one shown below. He caught it in an area where the bass were being heavily pressured. This is a sinking bait so you can count it down to the depth that you want and have more access to the suspended bass on Lake St. Clair.

For more on Lake St. Clair bass fishing go to: www.basstothefuture.com

[WayneC]

Crankbaits have always been a good choice on Lake St. Clair and in recent years the crankbait bite has only gotten better. There are many good ones out there but I prefer Bandits and Bombers because they have a low frequency rattle.

This 4 lb. 14 oz. smallmouth came on a Bandit that runs at around 8 feet deep. At times the bait would hit the bottom during the retrieve. The first hit came within 5 minutes of arriving at the spot but it was a miss. I cast back over the same spot and hooked up with this smallie. It doesn't have the length that you would expect from a smallmouth that size but it was fattened up for fall and very wide from top-to-bottom.

[Skulley]

I have done some investigation on rattle sounds to really get a feel for what works rattle wise and what doesn't.  Working in NVH at my job, I was able to make frequency measurements on these rattling crankbaits.  Bombers and Bandits are low frequency, however I found that the higher frequency baits attract bass better because I can speculate that they think a higher frequency rattle is a pod or school of bait fish.  That's why rattletraps and cranks with more ball bearings to make them rattle attract them so well.  There are always reasons that smallies are attracted to rattling baits.  I think it's mostly curiosity.  They are a curious bunch they are.  The more ball bearings in a bait the higher the frequency.  To understand rattling baits and how fish react to them one would have to know what frequency spectrum the bass hear or feel the bait at.  If your out of that range, the bass don't hear or feel anything.  It's no different than what the frequency range of the human ear can hear.  Wobble has a lot to do with it.  A wider wobbling bait is a low frequency bait as a tighter bait is a higher frequency bait.  It comes right down to how many times in a second the bait wobbles making the bait low or high as well as how sound travels in that same spectrum.  Very interesting data and I've been able to pinpoint what cranks work better than others during different times of years as well as water temps during those times of years.  I've found that a lower frequency bait, bomber or bandit work better in 50 degree water temp than they do in 70 degree water temp.  Normans also are better in 50 t0 60 degree water temp.  But the puzzling thing is that a tighter wobble like a rattle trap although a higher frequency bait can work well all year round no matter what the conditions.  At one point, I can speculate that none of this matters if the bass are just plain feeding.  I have eliminated different brands of rattling baits just based on what frequency the rattles are.  Sometimes it doesn't matter whether there are rattles or not but the frequency of the wobble.  That's where the balsa wood bait comes into play.  Sometimes I've noticed that there are bass that become skid-dish because of rattles and they bite a bait with no rattles better.  As a result, this data is really always inconclusive.  I am still trying to get a better understanding of this and the more data I get on this, the more I learn.  I've become a crank bait aficionado because I became so scientifically interested on the effects of rattling cranks on bass.  When I figure it all out, I'll be writing a book about it.  Lot's more work to do.


BD                            

[Manxfishing]

For me
I don't catch a ton of Bass on Cranks to really have a good opinion
But on Rattle traps I do

I like the higher pitched rattle traps (Yo-Zuri in windy days)
If it's calm or blowing just a little. I like the Bill Lewis, Less noise
Or even a silent red eye shad or evergreen
Seems to work for me