The BASICS of Winter Smallmouth Fishing

Black micro jigs, stupid tubes and jerkbaits in winter holes in our rivers is the name of the game for Winter bass fishing here in West central Indiana. Not many bites but everyone is quality with a good chance for a giant. Great video Ben. I hope you and the fam are well and are having a great holiday season. 👊🏼

Here smallies in the winter is my favorite time absolutely. If the water gets down into the lower 40s it’s great imo. The weather fluctuations will make them look for the most stable water. They don’t like really fast changes. That can slow the bite way down, but such changes can also cause them to group tighter and be more predictable so a bit of a catch 22. The one major exception is if temps suddenly drops far enough to cause a shad kill or just stun the baud really well. If that happens a small casting spoon like a 1/4 oz little cleo or acme sidewinder can absolutely wack em. Otherwise, the most stable water is probably better. That’s where they are less likely to be here one minute gone the next this time of year. The most stable water will be close to the depth where the thermocline was in summer most of the time actually. The clearer the deeper they tend to be. Current can still be good. Smallies always like current but… and this is huge, even in the tail races, they are less dependent upon current to feed than any other time of year. This is when you mayfind them behind objects, but this is the one point I sort of disagreed with in the video. Most of the time, here at least, they aren’t in the breaks behind. They are way more, as in almost always in the push on the front side of objects. If there is one thing I would say is the most important and misunderstood about fishing current for smallmouth, this is it. They like current because it brings bait to them. There is a slack water area in front of objects as well as behind and this is the first and best spot for them to ambush that bait. So do not, expect the fish to only be hiding behind objects. Actively feeding smallies if they aren’t feeding out in the actual current will be in the push in front more often. Again it is the first place where they can access bait brought to them by the current. I couldn’t agree more about finding and fishing under big schools of bait. Little flutter spoons again can be dynamite, as well as hair jigs, blade baits, tail spinners and smaller swim baits. Steeper breaks are usually the best and it can be shocking how far off the break they may be suspending and feeding. My biggest 5 bag ever was a 31.15 pound sack of Pickwick smallies and they were exactly how you described in the video… small packs of 4-6 bass suspended 12-18 feet deep over 30 foot and 40-50 yards or more away from a channel swing break. It was barely warm enough to not constantly freeze your guides up, overcast and sleeting the whole time. I will never forget how cold I got or how awesome it was finding and catching those fish. I’m sure if it was today, with Livescope it would have been even better too. I was fishing the break. I only found them because I threw as far as I could out the back side to cast off a backlash. Lol I caught a 4lber on that cast and then a 6.10 two casts later. Needless to say we backed off and kept throwing. Before it was over we caught 20 from 4 to a 7.4. I still remember the weights of all 5…. 5.10, 5.15, 6.6, 6.10 and 7.4. Hey, if you’ve read this far, thanks for listening to me reliving my dream day…. Lol… And listen to everything in the video too. I 100% know it will help you catch more and bigger winter time smallmouth.

The basics of winter smallmouth fishing in MI: Cut a hole in the ice. Drop the lure down. The end.

You turned me on to Blade Bait fishing Ben. Thank you Sir