When the snow melts and lake and river temperatures begin to rise, it’s time to prepare for the pre-spawning of smallmouth bass. Hard bodied or jointed jerk baits designed to suspend in the water are a great choice this time of year, especially on cloudy and windy days when smallmouth seem to be most aggressive. In contrast, it appears that the slower-moving weightless plastics appear to perform better on calm, sunny days.

Rig and Tackle: I normally go for 3 rigged rods to fish jerk bait.

1. Medium fast action 7′ ​​rod with a 5:1 or larger spool, Abu Garcia makes a couple of excellent reels for jerk bait fishing. Line it up with a 15lb braid with a fluorocarbon leader and you have a great setup for your biggest hard baits and biggest spinner lures.
2. I love this setup on still sunny mornings. Quantum MXP medium light 6’3″ rod, 4:1 spinning spool, 10lb braid with 18in 8lb fluorocarbon leader. This is my go-to for setting up the soft plastic jerk and twitch bail. #3 and #4 wide and offset, 1/64-1/32 oz #3 offset hooks (optional).
3. Daiwa Medium 7′ spinning rod with a 4:1 or larger spinning reel with 6lb fluorocarbon line. This is a wild rod, I have had success with this in the past using weightless fins as well as smaller harder baits. What I found is that since the fluorocarbon line sinks it tends to bring the hard and soft plastic baits a bit deeper and the 6lb line feels a bit better with the lighter baits than the baitcasting setup. 10 lb. If I could only take one, I’d take this one because I think it’s the most versatile, but the other settings are task specific.

baits:

1. Hard Body Lures: Husky Jerk #10, Floating Raps #7, Berkley Cutter 90 are great choices. Natural colors in clear waters and heavily fished areas, white, pearl, perch and chartreuse are spring winners in tinted waters.
2. Soft Body Baits – Zoom super fluke 5″, these just have great movement and seem to catch more fish than any other soft plastic baits I use. In recent years Berkley Gulp Alive, KVD and others have also put out good quality products Texas rigged with no weeds, these baits are dynamite in the spring.

To lease

Spring is a great time for smallmouth because at no other time of year are their patterns more predictable and there are so many large females “stacked” in the same spot. Focus on deep water drop off areas and 10 foot deep inland spawning areas with gravel bottom and earthen structure is a good place to start. Large, egg-laden females will actively feed and may have several trophies sitting in the same small indentation or around the same stump. Smallmouths will spend most of the winter in 30-40 feet of water and then will move to shallow flats just after the ice breaks up and until spawning, which usually begins when the water temperature reaches 50 degrees. . Any large flat in 8 to 15 feet of water next to 30 to 40 shelves is a great place to start. Look for a gravel bottom, many times a good rock pile or stump could hold 10 large females during this time of year.

Largemouths often need to see baits a couple of times before they decide to attack if they’re not actively feeding, so if you see an attractive spot, take 3-4 casts before moving. When they are feeding and you catch one, be sure to release it back to the same spot because the large females are rarely alone this time of year. This may be one of the funniest and fastest fishing of the year. When they’re feeding, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to catch five four-pound fish in ten casts.

When it’s cloudy and windy, it seems to wake up the smallmouth and have the best bite. Whenever I use a jerk bait in the wind, I always use larger, harder bodied baits. I also work the bait faster than with soft plastics. Rapala Husky Jerk 10 is a favorite bait in these conditions, with white, chartreuse and pearl white being warm colors. I always check with a bait shop or online about warm colors in a particular body of water.

Soft plastics are an art form, and I’m going to install them on calm, sunny days. I work the bait about 3-5 feet deep with longer pulls that mix with short jerks. A key tip is to keep a consistent slack in the line, especially when using the braided line setup, it will give the bait a more erratic casting motion and the twitches will look more realistic. Also use the line as your strike indicator, when you see the slack tighten adjust that hook. I remember once a friend and I were in the same boat using the same colors and the same bait. The only difference was that it added a little weight and was working the bait at a rate that averaged 3 casts for each of my casts. At the end of 75 minutes it was 14 fish and he had 1 and I was averaging 16″ per fish with a pair of four pound, nineteen inches smaller. The only difference was that he had no added weight and was working the bait.slow, sometimes as slow as 4-6 seconds between actions.This method is especially deadly on a calm sunny morning, largemouths are not as agitated as they will be when the wind picks up, but they are always ready for a meal This is often the first lure I start with and the last one I finish with.

For the people who fish them, spring bass fishing is unique. Using jerk and twitch baits is one of the most fun ways to catch them. Tight lines!