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This page is a rolling set of articles on applications and techniques that work on our stretch of the Potomac River.  Most match current situations or conditions.  To view other articles, choose the hyperlinks.  Some of these articles are combinations of reports and information, so they are listed under River Academy and under Reports.

General Information

Paying Attention         Keeping Track for Fishing Success

Spin Fishing

Cold Front         An Approach to the Most Dreaded Weather

Bottom Contact    Jigging in the smallie zone

Fishing the Rise    What to do when the river comes up

Flukin'    Fishing finesse plastics for river smallmouth

Some information on spin tackle

Fly Fishing

Why the fly?    The JGITI Manifesto

Chuck and Duck    The Basic Drift Approach to Smallie Fishing

Fish, Habitat, and Forage

Who are those guys?    Our fish and why we love them.

Prespawn River Fishing      patterns to use when targeting large smallmouth in early Spring

Cold Water Jigging         Some tips on using the Jig-and-Pig for large early-season smallies

The USGS River Gauge Page     Primer on this excellent resource for American river anglers

General Information

Paying Attention         Keeping Track for Fishing Success

In my early fishing days, I had a valuable technological device that accounted for dozens, maybe hundreds of fish I would have otherwise missed. The trips when I took it and used it and listened to it were invariably more productive than those I didn’t. It was a cheap but somewhat rebellious device, and also occasionally generated a bad smell; I was happy to put up with these shortcomings in return for the many cases of tennis-ball-thumb that were directly attributable to its capacities. That device was my fishing buddy, Butch Murphy.
    Butch is no genius, and though he has excellent fishing instincts and skills his advice isn’t what I’m referring to. The thing Butch has, and which I attempted to develop, is a memory.
    We’re not talking basic memory here, the kind that helps you to remember your kids’ names and the relative merits of 300 different beers and the lyrics to every song ever released by Jethro Tull; no, we’re talking a special kind of memory, one that more unenlightened folk (i.e., wives) might consider a waste of grey space. We’re talking Fishing Memory.
    Obligatory anecdotal example: One May eighties day Butch and I were paddling his canoe across a shallow Lake Manassas bay, heading toward another weed-edge where we hoped to bust more largemouths on our Buck and Bunnies and Dahlberg Divers. Butch pointed to a dark spot on the lake bottom about fifty feet to port and said, “That rock shadow there, that’s where you caught that walleye that time.”
    My responses were typical. I said, “Are you sure?” and “I thought it was the other bay,” and “Was that here?” and “What walleye?” and “Huh?” but I was casting as I spoke. Butch casually remarked that I had taken that walleye on a half-and-half grub, not the tube that I had on now; he could also have mentioned that that same day I’d fallen out of the boat and we’d seen a wild turkey and been late for work--but I was busy setting the hook on my new walleye.
    See, Butch remembers stuff like that. I’m not sure if he does it on purpose, as I now try to do, or if he’s just a Rain Man savant with a special skill for remembering lures and places and seasons and conditions and the characteristics of strikes. Oh, and the exact weights and lengths of fish caught, which prevents the normal growth process of caught fish over many tellings. He and I have probably fished together four hundred times, and fished another thousand times apart, yet he has twenty times the ironclad memories that I do. I can quote a lot of John Donne and James Dickey, and sing the patter songs of Gilbert and Sullivan and those Tull songs, but which rock where and when? I have to reinvent that wheel most every time. I long ago stopped doubting him and shut up and threw the tube.
    How’s your fishing memory? What happens to the attention that you pay? I fish the same nine-mile stretch of the Potomac about fifty times a year. I occasionally notice something new, but over the past decades at it I’ve marked and memorized just about every ledge and bar. I still have to work at where things happened, though, and I’ve organized the experience into some categories that help me behave differently.
    1.    Super Factors
        Some factors remember themselves, or don’t need remembering. I think of those as Super Factors. Good examples of a super factor are the stretch of river or the lake; the lure you are using; the season of the year. Obviously, if you flub a Super Factor you’re going to be way off; but by the same token those factors are easily figured out independent of any previous experience. Put another way, there’s not much loss in forgetting something you can easily figure out.
    Grand Events are super factors and remember themselves. The Really Big Fish, the Really Huge Mistake, the Really Bad Thunderstorm, the Topless Tubers--those are experiences which become stories. They may be too grand to change your behavior and contribute to fishing success. For example, it took me four or five years to absorb the idea that February and March were the best times to catch big bass; the Really Big Bass I automatically remembered tended to come in April or even May, and February is, well, February. But when I look at my notes I see far more highly productive big-fish trips earlier and a goodly number of washouts, missed spawns, or wrong conditions in the Dogwood Months. Trip for trip March is the best month. Fact.

2.    Big Factors

    Big Factors are a different story. They’re the things upon which fishing success is founded. They’re specific, reliable, basic, and easy to forget. I think of big factors as these: Weather (temperature, light conditions, and barometer mainly; Date; Water temp; Water clarity; and Observations of Fish Behavior. These are the kind of things Butch remembers and I and other normal people can’t. My advice: write down the Big Factors of every trip in conjunction with the kind of success you had.
    Take water temperature. How are you going to remember that, other than writing it down? The difference between 39 and 41 can be huge; and whether it got warmer on the north or south bank can save a lot of running around. And the Conventional Wisdom--north bank is warmer--isn’t always true when the Shenandoah enters, for example. Take some time, write it down.

    2.    Look at Where you’ve Been; Remember where you’re Going.

    This is a good rule for all navigation, including emotional and metaphysical. Once on a Canada fly-in I got lost in a maze of T-breaks in a mind-numbingly complicated lake. I couldn’t remember if I’d cut through and turned twice or three times and--here’s the point--none of the openings looked familiar. What I should have done was anticipate the problem and stop every time I came through into a new stem and look at it from the angle I’d be taking when I was heading back to camp. To do this, of course, the person has to realize that he’s at a point that may later matter. I had time for one more dead-end before dark, and a mosquito-tortured night, when another member of my party came chugging blithely by and showed me the way home. I think it boils down to this: We handle two views of things far more accurately than we handle one. Most anglers only get one view: where should I cast? Train yourself to add another view--upstream, downstream; channel or flat; morning or noon; spring or September. Stop and impress a second visual image of places on a regular basis, and those will cross-index to help you find your way to that spot again. This is especially good advice for those taking float trips on a strange stretch of water; take a moment to compose a picture of where your takeout is so you can find it in the dark, in the rain, on the fly, first time. I don’t need to explain to you the trouble that comes with missing a takeout.

    3.    Take extra Time

    Pause a moment and reflect on things that are worth remembering. This is good advice for general living too; hey, maybe I should become a pop-philosopher and go on Oprah and get a personal trainer and a toll-free number. I know it often happens that a big fish or a good moment on the river tends to accelerate things; we always think we have to hustle to get another cast out, paddle back up to that ledge, and so on. I like to take a picture of my clients after they’ve released their big fish; I say, “Take a deep breath. Look at where the fish came from,” then I snap it. You’d be amazed at how many people get a really happy look on their face when they pause in that moment. I wonder how many of us wasted that happy buzz in our haste to make it happen again. Put another way: how many people catch a bonza fish on the very last cast of a trip? Extra time to think will also cement in your mind the circumstances of the event, from which you can extract information later.
    This also suggests a pause at the start; it’s a tough time to stop and reflect. I’m always in a sweat to get fishing so it helps to mellow things out when we begin if we pause to take a water temp, consider the wind direction and the river level, measure the clarity of the water, put on some sunscreen, pour a cup of coffee, etc.

    4.    Keep a journal

    No brainer. I’m not good at it because I can’t resist writing lengthy philosophical passages and then forgetting to include the water temp and the wind direction. It’s usually enough to record the Big Factors but a few impressions and anecdotes are worth it in the long run. Put your journal where you will find it; I keep mine in my dry box with the lunch stuff so I always find it at a point when I have a few minutes to jot things down. This results in a lot of information on mornings, but I also then generally can recall the evening that went with the previous morning and fill that in. Like all writing ideas, this is a matter of Routine. Good writers aren’t particularly brainy or artistic; they’re mainly just consistent. My grandfather kept a journal every day of his life, and it’s mostly mundane data on weather and breakfast. For some reason it’s fascinating.
    Keeping a journal is like making Scotch; the first seven years are the toughest. You have to keep it up without any valuable output for a while, and if you try to use the output too soon it won’t be very good. That’s another good reason for keeping it short and simple. Obviously springtime conditions aren’t going to be much use in October, but by the next Spring they’re going to be a tad more apropos. Of course, few Springs are the same so a few years may go by until the conditions repeat themselves usefully. And by then my memories of what happened when and what worked where have faded along with the names of my children and the location of my own butt. If I could just find that journal.

SPIN FISHING TECHNIQUES

Cold Front

An Approach to the Most Dreaded Weather

10/01

Bottom Contact

Hit them where they live

When the river comes up, or fish go deep, the one constant is the bottom.   Once you have resolved questions of what kind of bottom to fish over, and found the kind of area you like--chunk rock is best, with sand and gravel next and bedrock and silt the least desireable--you only have to touch the bottom.  It isn't as easy as it sounds.

Why?    Simple.  Jigs and almost any other lure that is bottom oriented is going to make smallies think of crayfish.  Smallies think of crayfish all the time anyway, and usually they aren't very sophisticated about lure shape, color, and size, so you generally only have to get in the ballpark of look and behavior to get a bass to strike.  And crayfish hardly ever venture away from the bottom.   If you want your lure to be mistaken for a crayfish by a smallie, keep it on the bottom.

Also, in dirty water, the bottom is the one constant in a bass's world.   Though instincts and other senses guide fish very well, they are most comfortable in visual range of the bottom.  If visibility is six inches, fish will be six inches from the bottom.  If they are in a feeding mode in that situation, they may even spend a lot of time inclined forward, actually looking at the bottom, waiting for some crawdad to appear.  That's going to make most other lures, and any jig that isn't in that six inches, a lot less likely as a food source.  An exception would be noisy lures such as spinnerbaits and crankbaits, those that emit a regular pulse which will allow fish to vector in on a bait.

This also explains why smallies are so triggered by a falling lure.  A rising crayfish isn't natural, but a falling one is, and it's getting away.  If the critter gets to that chunk rock, it's probably gone--so a jig falling by a smallmouth will nearly always trigger a strike.  With current, most falling lures are actually angling downward, and that is realistic. It's a good strike, too; a solid 'tunk' that is well transmitted, even through line bent by wind or pushed by current.  Even slack line will hop visibly when a fish takes a falling lure.  Another jig strike occurs when fish pin the lure to the bottom then slurp it--a very subtle, difficult strike that can be tough to detect, most common in cold water.  That's another lesson.

There are two kinds of falling lures: slow fallers and fast fallers.  Both will work at the same time but one is generally going to outperform the other--so try both.  Slow fallers are intended to linger on the fall, staying in the strike zone.   They do this by some combination of water resistance and weight.  Hula grubs and large jig-and-pigs are examples of this, and small plastic worms fall into the category when rigged in certain ways.  The advantage of a slow-faller comes in dirty water--slower fallers emit more vibration that is perceptible to fish, and can show a larger profile--ideal in conditions when visibility is poor.

Fast fallers can be streamlined or sparse jig-and-chunks and grubs, but the mac daddy of fast falling lures is the tube.  Tubes have the advantage of falling fast, which will trigger strikes from fish that see them.  Once in rock, tubes don't perform as well as jigs with weed guards, which is why the tube should be thought of as a dropping lure, not a hopping lure.

A secondary consideration is the falling action, which has led to the success of a new category of lures:  "do nothing" plastics.  (I know, they've been around a long time, but we river anglers are sometimes a bit slow.)  Do-nothing lures actually take on a certain action or motion when falling, which adds to the appeal of the falling lure.  Yamamoto Senkos are a great example--when sinking they take on an unbelievable seductive wobble or wave.  Very picky fish can be tempted with them, but for general use they are too expensive and too delicate a lure for river smallies.

Anglers can cross the line between slow and fast by varying head weight on jigs.   A heavy head on a hula grub will streamline it and drop it faster in swift current; a light head in a tube give it a sexy spiral fall and, if rigged right, can make it fall horizontally rather than head-down.

In any event, the key considerations for fishing such lures are what I think of as a three-dimensional clock.  On my clock, my target--the place I have decided to hit by reading the water--is always at the center, and the current always flows from 12 0'clock.  Cast upstream--from 6--and you fish your lure differently than from 9 or 3 or 12.  The thing you must do is vary the tension and reel rate of your retrieve to give the lure free but felt fall.  That means that it falls freely but with enough tension on the line, with wind and current factored in, to fall as vertically as possible.   Fishing downstream, from 12, that means that you may have to drop line to the lure.   Fishing upstream, from 6, you will probably have to take up line quite quickly while still maintaining contact with the lure.  From 9 or 3 no reeling is generally needed but rod control becomes important.

Then the lure takes bottom.  It's critical that the lure only rap or pop the bottom, not linger there.  Tough, especially when the bottom contours are sharp and varied, as they are in our river.  Watch the falling line and "feel" the lure hit--usually it's a very dampened bump from rock.  In slow current the line will take a deeper bend when the lure feels the bottom; in faster current it may not change at all.  By reading the water an experienced angler will be able to anticipate the depth and position of the lure.  If you let it rest on the bottom the current and the rocks will conspire to drop it into a crack, and you will be hung up, weedguard or no.   A good jig fisherman will be able to start the lure rising on the lift just as it hits the bottom, and lift it just enough to be effective.

The second stage is to give the lure a lift--not a jerking jig, and not a "crawl", but a gentle lift--then let it fall again.  It's important to remember that the current will displace the lure in some way from its original position at this time, so even fishing downstream you will be covering new water.  You will take some fish on the retrieve, and on the lift, and from a stationary position on the bottom, but for smallmouth it's the fall that matters.

Fishing the Rise

How to behave when the river rises

In these droughty years, it seems that the last concern of the river angler is high water--we all feel the pressure of skinny flows coming.  These pressures are sharpened by dire predictions from the weather people, dire reports from the grain belt, and dire memories from last summer of hauling boats over ledges we'd never even seen before.  But right now the USGS Gauge Page tells me that the Potomac at Point of Rocks is a hair over 4 feet and 14000 cfs--last year's low was about 1.2--and there's a steady strong pulse of water in the Potomac as high as Paw Paw, over 100 miles and fifty hours upstream.  This is the third slug of high but fishable water we've seen this year, and unlike the jet-jockeys on the Susky we don't consider high water prime fishing.   We like summer pool, with its grass beds and gin-clear water, with its wading-level bathwater, with its aggressive smallies traveling to nail topwater lures and finesse plastics, with its patterns of shade and channel cover.  How do we react to high, dingy water?

I identify three specific strategies for high summer water:  Catch the Rise, Probe Deep, and Provoke 'Em. 

There is a fourth--Ignore It--which is often adopted by the general angler.   It sometimes works.  Last month I spoke to a regular on our stretch.  He was hitting fish pretty well in warm, low, clear water.  A week later I saw him again, using the same technique in the same areas--when he was in 18 inches more of stained water that was nearly 5 degrees cooler.  He complained that the action was slow.  Remember that fishing is, or should be, an exploratory process.  Try new things, but keep trying the old ones, so you don't stick with moderate success when much greater success is only an experiment away.  This angler accepted that the technique that worked a week ago was the best possible approach and settled for much less success this day--when we were doing quite well on a very different lure.

Catching the Rise is the best way to turn a problem into an opportunity.   Our rivers are volatile--they rise sharply and fall sharply.  If you hit the river and find it dirtying up and rising, don't despair.  Rising water provides a window of opportunity to catch big smallmouth.  If you use river gauges or have a good sense of how your river behaves, you should take advantage of a rise, not avoid it.

On a rise, most river fish change their behavior.  Large smallmouth tend to go on a feeding binge as rising water disorients baitfish and breaks loose nymphs and other bases of the food chain.   (fishing last week in water over 6 at Point of Rocks, we caught 3 smallies 18" or larger--very good summer fishing)  If the rise is sharp enough smallmouth tend to move to bank-oriented cover, and may be found in slack or even dead water areas because those areas will offer the best protection if the water continues to rise.  They will often be found in the small areas of cover along banks, especially where a steep bank has some rock cover.  When  the Potomac flood of September, 1996 began to recede, many thousands of gamefish were stranded in the C&O canal--a perfect refuge from the higher waters but a trap as levels fell.  When I catch the river on a rise, I fish several obvious bank-related pools and the good cover around them, on the theory that fish might move toward, but not necessarily into, those locations. 

As I fish my way down the river I'll use two strategies to try to understand the pattern fish are using:  Probe Deep and Provoke.  Provoke is the first choice, because it's easy to check and when it works, it really works.  My lure of choice for provocation is the full-sized spinnerbait in chartreuse, preferably with a two-tone or mottled finish and with a gold blade--willow-leaf if water clarity is good, colorado if water clarity has deteriorated already.  Other provokers are big crankbaits, big grubs with clothespin spinners attached, and in-line spinners.  I will direct my clients to cast far and fish fast at first--burning the lure across the top of likely holds to provoke nervous fish into striking.  It is this technique that has produced the best fish in a rising water situation.  Spinnerbaits won't catch great numbers of smallmouth but they will catch large ones.  Second casts in prime holes should be "slow rolled" or settled deeper.  Tail-out areas of pools are also worth a cast--the more actively feeding fish are often positioned at the edges of the cover while the sulkier fish are tight to it.  One definite fact about spinnerbaiting smallies:  casts that land in the pocket catch far fewer fish than casts that pass beyond the pocket and come cranking steadily through it, and long casts catch most fish.  Therefore accurate casting is critical.  Note:  more spinnerbaits are lost by throw-offs than any other way, especially after catching a good fish.  Large bass will rub you over ledges when hooked.  Couple that with the adrenaline surge from taking a good fish and you have an overlusty next cast, the line parts, and the spinnerbait lands in the next county with more hang-time than an NFL punt.  Check for frays often and retie after every good fish.

Bass and walleyes will feed with surprising effectiveness in stained and even muddy water.  If you are dealt a muddy river hand, don't give up too soon.   Remember also that black and dark colors are often more attractive in muddy water--high-visibility to the angler isn't always the best bet.

A variation on the Provoke 'em technique is used on sulky summer fish which are often found after or during a slight rise in levels, perhaps from a thunderstorm:  a buzzbait fished long and steadily.

After, or sometimes while, I am provoking rising-water fish, I'll also Probe them.  This is on the theory that rising water creates a good deep-feeding situation for the smallmouth's preferred forage, the crayfish.  As levels rise, all manner of stuff is washed downriver.  Dirty water to us is nutritious water for the food chain, so everybody bellies up to the smorgasbord.  Under this theory fish are busy working more limited areas for food, and probably using more search and less ambush tactic.   In this situation larger fish are going to gravitate to the best possible crayfish forage zones--near-current holds with good bottom--and they will keep their focus downward.  Midwater lures such as spinnerbaits, grubs, and finesse plastics won't attract their attention, and may be too much work if they do.

The best probing lure is the tube, which is deadly on smallmouth in most situations.  Tubes are tough to fish and tougher in deeper, faster water.  They are especially tough to fish in dirty water when they must be worked carefully in correct relation to the bottom, but still have lots of "fall," which is the point of the retrieve when they are most effective.  This takes a delicate touch and care.   Lures should be kept close to the angler--twenty or thirty feet at most.  Too far and the lure takes a snaggy angle; too close and the fish will be shied off by the boat.  The lift and drop to bump the bottom must be accomplished without too much wash, or the lure will settle into the very nooks and crannies that make the bottom attractive to crawdads and, therefore, bass.

Jig-and-pig works well, too, though not as well as it works in the early season.   Heavy fiber weedguards can reduce hangups some but you will still donate a lot of lures to the river god, and the weedguard will cost you some fish (even more if you don't trim the weedguard tips where they were burned and fused together.)  Hula grubs are good, and offer a large, moving profile.  Grubs will also work, and take lots of walleyes.  Colors:  for clearer water, brown, sand, or other lighter tones; when the water dirties up, darker colors with purple or black predominating.  Generally, purple is my color of choice in stained water.

The profile of a rise is important also.  The front of the rise--especially the first few hours--is your window for big fish.  Once the river has topped out, fishing can be tough and probing deeply is probably the best bet.  On a sharp fall, the action will be either hot or cold, and that's a place for using both techniques.   Remember that falling water will clear quickly and conditions will change as the day goes on.  Slowly falling conditions will contain a transition as fish resume their normal positions in the river; the fall is also where fish often take a respite from their hot feeding activity.

Generally speaking, rising rivers aren't the best fishing situation--but they're not a waste of time either.  Stay safe, beware of changing conditions, make no assumptions, and go fishing.

Flukin’

Commentary on Finesse Plastics

Every few years a new hot smallmouth lure comes on the scene. In the eighties we first showed our smallmouth an eighth-ounce white buzzbait and it seemed that we got hits on every cast. Now the buzzbait is a staple but it isn’t nearly as effective as it seemed to be before. Then there were the grub years, when the Potomac would produce 150 or more fish per day and it didn’t seem to matter where you threw a grub--a fish would pop it. They were skinny little big-headed fish, but they were numerous and some fish topped 18 inches. Now the grubs stay in the bag except in emergencies. Now our spin clients can throw anything they want--as long as it’s a Zoom Super Fluke.
    This February, when we had a window of warmth, the defining event wasn’t the half-dozen or so big fish that came in on jig-and-pig or spinnerbaits; it was the 16 incher I caught on a fluke. Taking the first fluke fish of the year earned me more congratulations from my colleagues than anything else, because it signalled something: the beginning of the season. I can’t explain this enthusiasm except to report that it works and it’s fun.
    It works so well that I’m continually surprised to find my clients unfamiliar with the lure or the concept. I guess the finesse plastic phenomenon has passed in the mainstream bass angler’s world, where things move with the commercial rapidity of a 20 foot fiberglass surfboard making 50 knots on six cylinders and nine inches of waterline. For largemouths I’m sure that the finesse plastics are just a standby technique forever second to titanium spinnerbaits and rattleshads. But for us the fluke has become such a staple that it’s common to tie them on at the boatramp and make no change all day. Except for retying frays, respooling, and replacing plastic bodies and breakoffs, I probably won’t change lures until October.

    Finesse plastics first appeared to me on the Susquehanna one June about eight years ago. The earliest incarnation was the Fin-S-Fish, and after that day four or five husky Susky smallies wore them as jewelry. They ate the lure with a thrilling combination of visual and palpable force that has displaced the topwater or buzzbait strike as my January fantasy of choice. Early on I had to learn the hard way about the proper hookset. Always forceful, I was suicidal that day. Any lure that forces you to learn new knots is a good one.
    Sluggos appeared soon after, and quickly displaced the Fin-S-Fish in our affections. Sluggos lacked the sexy profile of the Fin-S but had something better: action and rigability. Their semicircular cross-section and density of plastic made them cast farther and hold their shape better, and reduced the finicky task of rigging them just right. The larger sluggos could take a bigger hook, which anchored them and kept them lower in the water column even in current.     About this time we began to refine our fishing techniques with these lures. They were still in the honeymoon stage, when bass seemed to come for them whenever and wherever they hit the water. But we began to notice how a range of retrieves and applications could be produced, and that’s the first thing that has made them such as solid river smallmouth lure: versatility. The buzzbait, for example, isn’t very versatile; chunk and crank and they’ll hit it or not. But the finesse plastic can be delivered and fished in a wide variety of subtle ways which work.
    The Sluggo’s density and sink rate taught us to dead-drift it down flats and chutes. This was a deadly refinement to the simple chuck-and-twitch application that we began with. If the lure’s head was guided just a bit but it was allowed to wash through strike zones, it would draw more hits and larger fish. That dead-drift is the mainstay of our summertime patterns now.
    After Sluggos came the Assassin. Bass Assassins have a deeper body and a tapered tail--a subtle shape change that brought new techniques and success to our river fishing applications. Sluggos slither; Assassins dart. This is due to the thicker, stiffer body, heavier head, and tapered tail. Assassins also came in a pearly white, which was hands down the most effective color yet.
    The Assassin held its shape well, cast far, and taught us the most useful aspect of the finesse technique: the WigWag. When cast into moderately slow water, an Assassin would take a radical darting direction when twitched or jerked; that worked well to stimulate strikes but often took the lure out of direct contact with the angler. The result was that a strike seen or felt came at a time when a lot of slack interposed between angler and fish. Inexperienced anglers would miss the hit entirely--resulting in missed strikes or deep-hooked fish--or would set into so much slack that the rod movement caused a yank instead of a sweep and broke fish off, especially the big fish which tended to take violently then speed away, increasing the force of the hookset.
    To compensate we began to use a wig-wag motion of the rod--a very subtle waving rise-and-fall. This motion gave the lure the freedom to dart left, right, up, or down, as it tends to do, but also reduced that motion so that the lure didn’t draw out too much slack or belly. This kept the angler in better contact with the lure and improved hookups. After the cast, reel up slack and keep the rod no higher than 45 degrees throughout. Many strikes come immediately as the lure hits the water, perhaps because the splashdown resembles the missed strike of another smallmouth and leaves a stunned baitfish near the surface.
    Next, “settle” the lure through the first few feet of the retrieve so it will get a foot or so of sink. This may take it out of the angler’s sight; that’s ok. As the lure sinks, follow it down by lowering the rod from 45 degrees to parallel to the water, on the principle that when you can you always keep the rod forward enough to set the hook easily. When you are ready to retrieve, simply raise or wag the rod upward from parallel or 30 degrees or so up to 45 degrees or so--not sharply, a very subtle motion. Unlike jigging, when the lift of the rod is faster than the drop, it should be an equal-speed up-and-down; a wigwag. If there is a belly in the line, never fear; if your line is straight or tight to the lure you are probably pulling it too hard. In fact, as I guide, I often detect the strikes of my clients by judging the angle of the line. This lure doesn’t have enough mass or water resistance to hold the line straight to a rod at 45 degrees; straight line often means a take. After the wig-wag, more slack will have been left in the line; reel it up as the rod returns to parallel to the water and pause. It’s the pause that matters most.
    The lure should dart left or right six inches to a foot, then curve back toward the angler--that’s the line and rod bringing it back under control. Then, in that instant of contol, it will stop and sink again. The action is deadly on river smallmouth. Except in the springtime it is a very subtle and slow retrieve, which means that fished from a drifting boat the angler will pop the lure into likely spots, work it a few times, then “speed it in” to make the next cast. This sequence is effective because it creates a varied approach to cover water and occasionally trigger strikes from the fish that wouldn’t take it when it was moving slowly. In the springtime the lure should be dropped on likely spawning or territorial spots and twitched more quickly and abruptly at first. We call this “Spook-Flukin’”, because a good angler can get a finesse lure to “walk the dog” like a Zara Spook--deadly on bedding smallies.
    The best present incarnation of the finesse lure for river fishermen is the Zoom Super Fluke. Zoom is my favorite brand of plastics; they are affordable, durable, and the company is responsive and innovative. Zoom also sells a Fluke which resembles the Fin-S-Fish; if you’re river fishing, get Supers. They’re the best finesse plastic out there. The Zoom Fluke is deeper in the body and longer than the Assassin, which gives it a larger profile--bigger baits catch bigger fish. It also has a more refined rigging structure, with a belly crease which allows the hook to shift in the lure as a fish takes it, which gives a better hookup ratio. The lure has the same tapering baitfish structure but it also has a little tail fluke, which looks good but more importantly acts as a “brake” by resisting the water flow and dampening--but not eliminating--the darting action of the lure. In flowing water that means more control and more connection. Zoom’s version also comes in better color spreads with some sparkle and two-tone colors--though regular old white pearl is still the first choice for our stretch of river.
    The main drawback to fishing the Super Fluke is rigging and maintaining the lure. It takes practice and the lure is high-maintenance. In all finesse plastics, the challenge is to deliver a straight lure to the fishing spot; it has to be straight and stay straight through the trauma of launch and re-entry. The first stage of this process is hook choice.
    In the old days we only had the straight offset worm hook to work with. This was fine, and I confess to a certain stodgy conservativeness when the new wide-gap hook came on the scene. The fact is that hooking ratio depends mainly on the behavior of the fish and the character of the hookset; the real value to the wide-gap hook isn’t hooking capacity but quality of lure performance. I’m convinced that the wide-gap hook works better because it “keels” the lure by lowering its center of gravity and letting it track better in moving water. In any event I go with the wide gap for fishing Zoom Super Flukes.
    As for size, my present first choice is 5/0 or 4/0. These are large hooks for small mouths, but I consider four key factors here. First, the smaller fish will peck at these flukes but rarely take them, so if you learn to factor out the small-fish hits and not worry about missed hits--even let them go when you can see the fish or don’t feel a real take--the larger hook helps to cut down on dink numbers. If you want to, which I do. We’re having a big fish year and I don’t need to boat every fish that taps at my lure. Second reason is hook weight. Though the fluke is a surface/subsurface lure, the main problem is riding up to the surface or “skating,” which will occasionally move some fish but in many situations results in fewer good strikes. The 4/0 and 5/0 offset or wide-gap worm hook by Gamakatsu or Owner is on a heavier gauge wire than the 3/0 hook so we get maximum sink. And the third reason is the same: bigger hook, maximum keeling. The final factor is that the larger the hook, the more solid and durable the rigging of the lure--which as we will see is the key drawback to fishing this lure with inexperienced anglers. The heavier hook seats more firmly in the plastic and stays seated longer.
    Gamakatsu and Owner hooks are very, very sharp, and they stay sharp, which is worth the extra money they cost.
    The fluke is a high maintenance lure. Rigging and keeping the lure rigged is tough work. The key problem is that any flaw in the line of the lure will make it spin, which will reduce strikes to zero and line twist to maximum. Strikes and hooksets will usually bend the lure, and most hooked fish seriously dislocate it, so anglers spend a fair amount of time tinkering. Add to that the tendency of the plastic to tear and wear and you have a lot of potential trouble.
    One solution to that is to rig hooks on 18 inch lengths of leader material with a snap swivel. For clients I’ll rig a rod and give them a spare rigged lure; they don’t actually change it often but the rigged lure serves as an example for them to look at to maintain the one they’re fishing. The swivel cuts down on line twist and I can use a more durable and heavier diameter of leader like a fluorocarbon--low visibility and more resistance to the rock that big bass love to nuzzle into when hooked.
    One good side to the lure is that it’s almost snag proof. It will slither through grass, tickle over rock, and clatter out of tree branches easily. I always tell my clients to cast at the cover--up on the rocks, or onto the grass--because a gentle steady pull will deliver the lure very tight to the cover. I’d venture to say that more underwater snags on Flukes are big fish than actual snags.
    Fluke hits are amazing. They combine the lovely “tunk” sensation of a strike on a falling lure like a jig-and-pig or a tube with the visual stimulation of a surface strike. For most surface lures the hit is all visual, and for most subsurface lures the hit is all palpable. With flukes it’s both. Also it’s a different kind of surface hit--a boil-up rather than a blow-up. This is due to the fact that the lure isn’t in the surface film but below it, and the fish can turn on the lure more efficiently--and take it more cleanly, if the hookup ratio is any measure. Another advantage over surface plugs is that the fluke has a single large hook and so boated fish are much easier to handle, and I’m one of those that believes that single hooks hold better than trebles.
    Many fluke hookups are accidental. My wife recently caught a big smallmouth that blew up on the lure as she began to reel it in--an almost simultaneous splash and sizzle of line running out against the drag. I also often have clients who hook fish--often good fish--when the lure isn’t maintained at all, such as when the angler is teasing out a snarl or taking a drink of iced tea. In this case the lure must be sinking, perhaps with a little motion from line drag, when the fish takes. In many cases a light tension on the line seems to lead to hookups even if the angler takes a long time to notice that a fish is on.
    Unfortunately, such careless fishing often leads to deep-hooked fish. When bass are taking Flukes well, they quickly blow them back into the grinder area of their mouth. When they are not taking well--pecking, bumping, or lipping lures, they can be hooked by simply reeling up against a strike and setting firmly, with steady pressure, when the weight of the fish is felt. One drawback to the fluke is that it’s a big hunk of plastic and the hook will occasionally take a bad angle into the fish’s mouth through the plastic. For that reason I recommend taking extra care to maintain strong pressure against a hooked fish in the first five or ten seconds of contact. That’s when most strikes are missed. The bottom line is to use the reel to maintain the lure and use the rod to work it. When a strike is detected, speed reel to the tension and then sweep, still reeling to maintain tension. Fish barbless and you will kill fewer fish.
    Perhaps the best testament to the effectiveness of the Fluke on river smallies is the names. Fin-S-Fish never really caught on, but we still call them interchangeably Sluggos, Assassins, or Flukes. More names equals more respect.
    Zoom Super Flukes are carried by Galyan’s, K-Mart, Sports Authority, and all spin-tackle shops. They are in high demand in this area. All of the light colors work well though we favor Pearl and the white with blue flecks for Potomac smallies.

FLY FISHING TECHNIQUES

Why the fly?    The JGITI Manifesto

Our winter plumage is dull--pasty faces; grainy, worked-out eyes; confining wool and nylon clothing; elaborate and grandiose plans for spring.  If you've never seen the pathetic sight of a summertime fishing guide in midwinter, with snow on the ground and the bass inaccessible to flies, catch us at the fishing shows this January and February.   There we will be doing the next-best thing to fishing:  talking about it.   Our most common conversation at these gatherings of the frustrated and cabin-febrile is with what we call the JGITI:  Just Getting Into It.

Make no mistake:  this is not an insulting term.  JGITI guys are our bread and butter, and getting to the JGITI point is a great leap forward that many anglers don't make.  But it's also a tough phase to get through.  We spend a lot of our time coaching fly anglers "over the hump" from spin fishing to fly fishing, and we consider it a noble calling.  Every year I fish with and talk to dozens, maybe a hundred, who made the jump with our help.  To be honest, I was one myself, and there is no zealot like a convert. 

We're already in risky territory here at MKFS.  As bass guides we are encroaching on the spin world (the Monofilament World) already.  It's only that the smallmouth, and the river smallmouth particularly, is particularly susceptible to the fly rod that gives us any legitimacy at all.  And I'd readily admit that we're a bit crazy, fishing fly rods at all times and places and conditions no matter what.  And it's also true that many of our 'flies' are large and heavy enough to cast well on a seven foot baitcaster with 20 pound Spiderwire, and a few have even been developed--don't tell Umpqua--to imitate spin lures.

But we're fly guys, pure and simple, and we preach the gospel of the fly, and we are willing to make the speech a dozen or a hundred times a season, and urge our anglers to take up the long rod, because we really think it's. . .well, what we think and why is the topic of this piece.  Here follows the basic rationale of the fly for river smallmouth.

First, I'll say succintly that a fly rod is not the best way to catch smallmouth in a river.  A spin rod is more effective in about 80% of the situations I fish in.   Even the best casters among us--Mark Kovach, Richard Larkin, Butch Murphy--won't outfish a hard-working and experienced spin guy most of the time.  So when you put down your spin rod and take up the fly, you are reducing your take rate, period.  Add to that the learning curve, the long period of time before you can cast like Mark, Butch, or Rick, and you have a very sharp drop-off in fishing success.  Depending on how skillful you are, how hard you work, where you fish, and how often you fish, that drop-off may mean going from a respectable catch rate down to zero for a long time.  Still with me?  I'll go on.

This is of course because the mechanics of fly casting are most of the operation.   For a bass anglers to pick up the fly rod is to accept a more difficult, less effective coure; therefore it is a purer moral choice, as Thomas Aquinas might say.  The choice of a horse's ass, my grandfather might say, but he came from a more practical generation.

The first question then is, what do you want?  We find in many of our JGITI friends the general feeling that they want something more from their experience on the river, more of a personal test.  Since spin casting is easily mastered, the margin between success and no success is rapidly narrowed to external factors--luck, as it were, though it might also be weather, river conditions, fishing pressure, guide incompetence, or other things that aren't within the angler's direct control.  Fly fishing, however, sets many personal barriers before those external barriers and tends to keep the fishing experience--success or failure--more within the angler's control.

I remember an experience two years ago, on Cape Cod, that illustrates this point.  After one excellent day on Billingsgate Shoal, we were heading out there again, but my stripping basket blew out of the boat.  The fish were there--my friends had good success--but the loss of the stripping basket created for me an obstacle that was part practical and part psychological.  It was tough wade fishing in a fast tide without it, but it was also tough for me to get over the mistake of not keeping track of the equipment.  It wasn't until later that I was able to realize why I hadn't done well:  I had lost control of a factor well within my control, so I had to take responsibility for the problem.  It wasn't wind or tide or picky fish or drift-gillnetters or sunspots: c'est moi.

To take up fly fishing is to take on more links in the chain that connects angler to fish.  So why would any sane person volunteer to tie so many knots and introduce so many potential weak links between himself and the quarry?  I think the main answer is in the idea of catch-and-release, or its opposite idea, what Howell Raines called 'the Redneck Way' in his memorable "Fly-Fishing through the Midlife Crisis."  We're not fishing for food.  If we were, there are far more effective means of accumulating food even than a spin rod:  weirs and traps, for example, or explosives or drift gill-nets.  Or calculate the cost of your fish per pound:  those guys with the Astro boats with the sparkly finish are paying about $900 per pound for largemouth bass.  That's an absurd equation, so you might as well not even try to balance it.  We're putting these fish back, so we might as well reduce the focus on the fish anyway.  Since we've accepted the idea of "sporting," why not take it to its farthest extent?

That's not to say we don't want to catch fish; catching them is the object, and the way we measure ourselves.  But so much of our modern fishing world is externally affected.  Just look at the people who have the jack to fly to Alaska; it's no great accomplishment to catch a nine-pound rainbow there, or to catch a twenty-pound striper on Monomoy Island, or a six-pound bonefish out on lonely little Christmas Island in mid-Pacific. But it's easier there, nobody will deny.  So what do those of us bound to this time and place and budget do?  We learn to appreciate our sport in new, more complex, and more internal ways.  Then when you do get to Monomoy you will more fully appreciate your big striper, or your skunking.

We're often accused of attempting to seduce honest men into the wildly expensive hobby of fly fishing.  This is a false charge, though misery does love company.   Some of what fly anglers buy is unnecessary and unnecessarily expensive, but a good fly rod is like a good camera or a good guitar--it's really worth what you pay for.   And with recent competition among manufacturers creating midpriced rods and lifetime guarantees and so forth, the prohibitive cost isn't quite so prohibitive.   And men, of course, need expensive hobbies to fulfill lives that are deadened by productive careers and loving families; we're just fulfilling the need for balance.   Sorry, I was possessed by the ironic spirit of my wife there for a moment.   Honestly, though, fly anglers tend to be more thoughtful, more reflective, and more appreciative of the nuance and the surroundings of their pastime.  If you're a potential JGITI, you'll trade a few fish for thoughtful, reflective, and appreciative of nuance.

But you must know, honestly, that going to the fly rod--working through the JGITI phase--is hard work and will require that you employ, or develop, a patience and an appreciation for the components of a fishing experience that don't generally make the pages of Sports Afield magazine.  I watched a grown man rejoice over an eight inch smallmouth recently--his first on the fly rod--as if it were one of those big checks they give out on TV.  But it takes a lot of practice, a lot of thinking--you have to go back to school, and accept the demotion at first, and the quizzical looks and the derision of the Monofilament People.

But it's worth it.  I often fish the Outer Banks of North Carolina for speckled trout, and I remember a memorable afternoon on a hot tide at Green Island Slough.   Anglers were shoulder to shoulder there, as they often used to be, with an occasional spec coming out of the deep water in front of us.  I was the only fly guy out of about forty anglers that day, and those trout wanted the fly bad.  Something about the intermediate line, or the smaller profile of the fly, or the subtle horizontal motion among all those frantic lead-head jigs, I don't know, but I took two fish for every one caught by everybody else combined.  After a while they began to peel out of the line and slog their way back to the parking lot, and they had to give me a wide, grumbling berth as they walked behind me, because I wasn't minding my backcast--I was having too much fun.  And I was putting those trout back in the water, including one of about five pounds, still one of the most beautiful fish I've ever caught on the fly.  Sweet redemption of a long and difficult learning curve, and the reason for living for a fly guy.

So I look forward to the JGITI guys this winter, because I know they're like me, and they'll be relearning the enjoyment of a beginning in fishing, reconnecting to those wonderful firsts of childhood.  Come see us; we love to talk about it.  Until April, anyway.

Chuck and Duck    The Basic Drift Approach to Smallie Fishing on the Fly

Anglers on my boat are often surprised at the approach we take to fishing for smallies on the drift.  That's because there are several major differences between drift fly fishing and wade fishing for bass or any other quarry with the fly rod.   Those differences can be divided into two general categories:  pace and size.   Taken together, they create a rather hectic and perhaps less reflective approach than many fly anglers are looking for.  Generally our clients opt for a more careful and gentle approach, but to fully appreciate a drift trip you need to know what is possible and what works before you decide on your own approach.

Pace is a key consideration.  When an angler is wade fishing, good spots--we call them "hits" or  "shots"--are rare.  Each one needs to be worked carefully and gradually, with fly changes and stealthy approaches and a generally patient attitude.  This is obvious; when you wade, the area you are fishing is limited.  Trout anglers especially are used to "working" a fish, perhaps even "resting" the fish, as it shows itself in rising or nymphing activity.   I have often stood in the same place for hours at a time while dry-fly fishing for trout.  This isn't a productive attitude on a drift trip in most situations.  We cover nine miles of quality habitat--literally thousands of good shots.  Also, our fish rarely show themselves, and they are generally only vulnerable to one try with any given lure.  An angler who takes a second shot at a single spot may be missing a better opportunity at the next spot.  Remember too that bass are generally holding in their locations, behaving territorially at least for a time.  Consider as you drift a strategy of pace, and discuss that with your guide or partner so you get even coverage of water at the best possible pace.  Good guides will signal you when to repeat cast or when to attempt a more careful pace for a particular spot, but the general rule is one cast, move on.

This is also important at the beginning or "probing" stage of a trip, when you are trying to dial in on what feeding behavior the fish will be exhibiting.   I have had many anglers groove on a pattern or technique too early, then find out later that another thing--perhaps the next thing we would have tried--was actually a hotter choice.  Pace your trip with a careful survey of the standards before you decide.  Otherwise you may take a good fish early and stick doggedly to that fly when another choice would work better or perhaps produce more quality fish.

Size is another surprise we have for our clients.  We hand them large flies first, and by large we mean large--average or standard would be a 5" or so white or chartreuse Dahlberg Diver on a 1/0 TMC 800 saltwater hook--a serious fly.  Smallmouth prey sizes are larger than you think.  Larger than that.  Even larger than you are thinking now.  Still larger.  So large that a 5" fly is actually midrange.  Of course, as guides, our first choice and hope for an angler is that he will take a large fish, and we'd rather our clients get ten strikes from good fish than a hundred from smaller fish.  You have the same choice.  A #6 black woolly bugger or a small Sneaky Pete will move a lot of fish in the Potomac, no doubt, and some of them may be good or even large fish--but a larger fly will move larger fish every time. 

Size also applies to coverage.  Trout anglers are often surprised by the casting profile we look for on the river; smallie fishing is in many ways more like saltwater fishing than trout fishing.  Drift is far less important; flies need action, produced by stripping, and that action is often much faster and more sharp than many fly anglers have ever seen.  We love a long cast with an erratic series of fast, sharp strips of  up to two feet in length.  Poppers are violently yanked.   More subtle motions are often in order, but the starting point is far and fast.   Dead drift, subtle topwater, and mended work with flies is still a good skill, but boorish and loud motion on large flies is the technique that produces the most good bass for us.

It's also important to remember that we believe profile is the most important characteristic of a fly.  Color is secondary; we think mainly in terms of light and dark, solid or mixed, in that order.  Eyes are important too but most of our flies are quite impressionistic and don't imitate anything in particular, or at least don't imitate only one thing.  Minnow flies tend to the large-bodied and blunt (hence our preference for the Butch Minnow over the Clouser); poppers are shiny and gaudy (Bob's Banger is a standard); and the divers and other hairbugs we use are deep bodied and very long.

If you were to see a boat full of MKFS guides flyfishing the Potomac, this is the image:  Two anglers working flies from the boat.  The aft angler watches the forward angler's coverage and stroke, yielding to his cast so both aren't false casting at the same time.  Both anglers will say "picking up" when they pick up the line into a backcast.  Both anglers concentrate on areas to the side of the boat, because of the two cardinal rules of flyfishing from a drifting boat:  Never make the Same Cast Twice, and Never Cast where we've Been. Casting to the side also trusts the guide to set you up on the best possible hit.  The aft angler fills the areas or shots the forward angler misses or leaves for him; one mark of an experiened pair of fishing buddies is that they team well to cover water, even to the point of being competitive or occasionally poaching on each other--rather double-cover a spot than miss it.  For a right-handed angler, that generally means that the guide will position the boat to take the best shots for him to cast to his left.  Sometimes the aft angler will take the starboard side of the boat while the forward angler takes the right side if, as is often the case on our float, there are good shots all around the boat.  The boat moves from position to position with the guide coaching the forward angler into the best or "cream" of the spots; guide and angler communicate constantly.   Casts are long, generally past the intended target so the fly is "on action"when it enters the anticipated strike zone.  Anglers are aware of the "bubble"--the area around the boat where the pressure wave and shadow and noise of the boat's passage will put off all but the most lit-up of fish.  Fly anglers are making the most of the fly rod's greatest advantage--the ability to pick up a lure and deliver it again quickly without reeling in the line and redeploying it every time.   For distance, casters are using the double-haul; they may also be using stripping baskets to organize their shooting line and make for maximum distance on the cast.   Most flies are landed and immediately stripped hard--little time for pausing or working a fly slowly.  At times the guide will hold the boat up so a spot can be worked carefully, and during those positionings the anglers will narrow the scope of their casting angles so they are working the water more carefully but still trying not to make the same cast twice.

Strikes are greeted with hard strip-sets rather than a lift of the rod, because feeding smallies can be in groups and can be reckless, so some strikes are misses and a lift of the rod will pull the fly out of the strike zone while a strip is a better set which keeps the fly there.  When the drifting boat encroaches on the line or an angler strips the fly too close to the boat for a normal pickup, the angler will execute the "roll-cast pickup"--a quick roll cast away that puts the line and lure far enough out to meet the basic requirement for a full pickup--as Left Kreh says, you have to be able to move the fly before you can pick it up.  This process of fishing takes stamina and skill, but it's the way we catch our best fish.  My largest smallmouth came on the fly--22+ inches, nearly five pounds--on a day when little was happening and a mechanical process of casting and retrieving a big fly yielded exactly two strikes during my time in the front seat:  a 13 incher and the big spawned-out female.

As I've said, a more gradual and thoughtful approach is possible for a drift trip with the fly, and it is often more fun and less strain to slow it down; but if you want to raise your chances for a big fish this should give you a picture of how we do it.

FISH, HABITAT, AND FORAGE

Who are those guys?    Our fish and why we love them

So I'm fishing with this guy who will remain nameless.   He's a good angler but somehow rubs me the wrong way; maybe it's the way he has done everything,  been everywhere, and caught dozens of huge and notable fish.   Except he's always doing things just a bit wrong and doesn't listen much so we get most of the way through a tough fishing day with little to show for our efforts.  Smallies are a forgiving breed, though, and with half a mile of generally unproductive river left he makes the same too-long cast and works the lure the same too-fast way he's been doing all day despite my best efforts to communicate what generally works.  I've almost given up so I just watch the lure fly and listen with half an ear to his current story, in which he succeeds at catching a gargantuan rainbow in Alaska despite the incompetence of his guides, pilots, partners, and, evidently, the entire state legislature and the National Guard.  He's so wrapped up in his story that he stops fishing the lure, lets it go--then doesn't feel the line hop like an electrocuted frog and see a Hyundai-sized swirl center itself on the last reported location of his lure.  I yell "Crank!  Yank!  Yank!   Crank!" and other sage guide things, but he just turns to look at me, maybe says, "Huh?"  But it's a freak of nature and the fish zams off toward Lovettsville, self-hooked.  He holds onto the rod and begins to reel frantically against the drag as a smallmouth the size of a dachsund tumbles out of the water half-a-dozen times, takes the usual runs and dives and leaps, miraculously remains hooked throughout, then dodges into the net as the hook falls free.

I'm fired up, man.  This is a good guide moment:  the guy doesn't deserve a fish but he's got a good one in the boat.  But then he does it.  He goes too far.  Holding up the fish--a magnificently colored 19 1/2" fish a hair under four pounds, a terrific fish for summertime--he hefts it a bit and shrugs, says "I've caught a bunch of bigger smallies than this in Lake Erie.   It's a nice fish and all, but. . ."  Those are his last words.  They still haven't found him; we guides know the deep and forgotten spots of the river.

OK,  it's a fantasy--all our clients are gracious and appreciative of the river's bounty, and I haven't murdered one in years.  But not all are aware of the distinctions between the fish we catch and the many other incarnations of the Black Bass regardless of mouth dimensions.

The smallmouth bass is a distinct species; it can't interbreed.  I have heard tell often of "hybrid" fish--usually misidentified goggle-eyes, rock bass, spotted bass, or oddly-colored individuals of one or the other common species of Black Bass.  Winter fish can take on a pasty tan color--we call them "mustard bass"--but they're smallies.  Immature fish have a pumpkinseed speckle and can have a distinctly red eye--still smallies.  I'm no biologist but I'd like to give you a guide's perspective on the distinctions you can expect to see within the species, and perhaps color your approach and appreciation to this particular fish.  To do that we'll need to distinguish--as my imaginary client did not--between the character and, perhaps, the value,of individuals of the species.

Smallmouth, like all fish, will thrive in any place that has everything they need.   There's a respectable population of smallies in weedy, shallow Lake Manassas, just a few miles from here--refugees from the creek that was impounded.  Whether they will become self-sustaining and will maintain a thriving and dynamic population is another matter, of course, and there's a considerable difference between the definition of a population for the purposes of biologist and for an angler.  Much as a wild rainbow is preferable to a stocked one, some consider a naturally occurring fish superior to one that was planted there, whether the planting occurred in this or in some previous generation.

The rumor is that our Potomac smallmouth were brought by railroad men in milk cans from the Ohio Valley streams like the Miami in Ohio and the Fox in Illinois.  Early accounts of fishing activity on the Potomac do not include smallmouth; the fish weirs constructed by native peoples in the Knoxville area probably caught catfish, fallfish, suckers, and sunfish.  But the smallmouth are present now, and they reproduce plentifully and reliably most years.  That makes them bonafide naturally reproducing river fish, a noble breed.

Rivers are tough places for fish to live.  Conditions vary sharply and reproduction and survival are a crapshoot at best.  River fish also have moving water to contend with, which shapes their behavior in every way and tends also to shape their appearance into more dynamic and pleasing streamlines.  Mortality is high and fish rarely live to the extent of their natural capacity, so river fish are seldom as large as lake fish of the same species.  That's why state record smallies are mainly from lakes when river fish make up the majority of the members of the species caught in most states of the East.

I identify four distinct types of smallmouth bass, two from lakes and two from streams.  This is unscientific, and only scales the kinds of judgments we make about fish--size, weight, vigor, markings, and rarity.  I confess:  it's also a chauvinistic defense of the kind of fish we catch in the Potomac and in our piedmont rivers in general, and a way to evaluate the quality of a fishing experience that is not entirely dependent on size.

Lake smallmouth tend to have a different physique, different growth profiles, and different habits from their river brethren.  Generally speaking they are larger, thicker-bodied, and so have what appears to be a smaller head.  The first Lake Erie smallie I caught was a shock--a 14-inch fish that approached a pound in weight and appeared over-inflated.  It fought well but with a sturdy, head down doggedness, not the explosive and darting energy of the river fish.  In hand, the fish was so dense and chunky that it barely bent when held sideways--a body type we still call "pork chop".  Use this link to jump to a photograph of Potomac River Smallmouth Club member Jay Eiche with two dense Erie smallies-- but remember to come back!  Note the extraordinary girth and depth of the fish, and the continuous curve from dorsal fin to mouth.  Erie fish grow quickly and reach maximum size due to abundant forage and clear water.  Six pound fish are not unusual there, with sevens occurring regularly.   Erie produced the Ohio record, a 9-8, in 1993 and the New York state record--an 8-4--in 1995. That's fabulous, perhaps the best smallie fishing in the country, but the shorter growing season in Erie may mean that the southern reservoirs--where fish can cram in more growth in their allotted span of about 12 years--will be the province of the next world record.

Erie falls into the meatiest part of a continuum for smallmouth bass in which the variables of feeding opportunity--basically clear and comfortable water and available forage--and the length of the seasons make for a particular type of fish.  In these lakes the habitat is amenable to smallmouth bass and the growing season is long enough to allow them to grow to a large size.  At the other end of the continuum is the Canadian Shield lakes--such as Rainy Lake, or Basswood or Crooked Lakes in the Boundary Waters.  These lakes are excellent for clarity and forage but the intensity of iced-over winters--during which bass feed very little--shortens the growing season so much that larger sizes are rarely attained.  Some years ago the town of Ely, MN offered a $1 million bounty on an eight-pound smallmouth bass from the area in an attempt to attract more bass fishermen to their lakes and resorts.  That state record was never caught, and the Minnesota 7-15 record still stands (notwithstanding the musings of the anglers at http://www.walleyes.org/womanlake/smfish.htm)   That's likely because Minnesota lakes don't have the growing season length to allow the fish to take advantage of the abundant forage in their allotted span.  High northern lakes have excellent populations of smallies not because they are particularly rich or excellent fisheries but because they are so lightly fished.  That's a good reason to release those big smallmouth carefully and eat walleye when you're up there.

At the other end of the continuum is the largemouth/smallmouth conflict.   In mountain reservoirs in the south, smallies thrive; clear, deep, cool water, lots of rock, why not?  They also have longer growing seasons there.  Lakes south of Virginia's Smith Mountain and Tennessee's Dale Hollow rarely freeze over, despite their altitude; they have huge forage bases, mainly of threadfin and gizzard shad.  Dale Hollow is legendary as a big smallie lake and has produced numerous fish over 10 pounds, including the disputed 11-5 and the undisputed 10-8 that between them hold the world record for the species.  (Though Alabama's record of 10-8 is very close, and came from a tailrace--technically a river.)  It's Dale Hollow that exemplifies the perfect situation for very big smallies, because the deep and clear lake has the temperature profiles and forage to keep smallies happy but they aren't outcompeted by largemouths as they are in the shallower, warmer, weedier lakes in the rest of the country.   Largemouths, white bass, and stripers all put competitive pressure on smallies and only the lakes where the smallmouth have a competetive advantage, or at least a niche, will have the large and sustaining populations that lead to regular fishing success.   Here's a good photograph of a big lake fish--the new Texas state record at 7.93 pounds.  This fish could almost pass for a river fish, with its lean frame--but it has a bit too much belly flab and not enough shoulder.  Compare this one to Jeff's big river fish--a masonry block vs. a watermelon--or even my wife Kim's lean, big-headed 21 incher.

So lake fish are a horse of a different color.  Not to run down Jay's beautiful fish, but they aren't so uncommon as a big river fish.  That's because rivers are just tougher environments.  They are subject to the same stresses as lakes, and one more:  rough life.

The 1996 floods on the Potomac put the serious hurt on our smallmouth fishing, but eventually proved a bonanza as reduced populations fed well and grew to large sizes--witness the 5-7 caught by Jeff Kelble this spring, the largest smallie most of us have seen.  Those floods stand as a not uncommon example of the slings and arrows that keep river smallie populations slim and young and on their toes.  Rivers are also shallower, and subject to many other more minor stresses than hundred-year-floods.  High water temps, droughts, increased predation from mammals and birds (and people!) and the too common use of rivers as accidental or intentional sewers are the most obvious.  One less obvious is "richness."

The Susquehanna in Pennsylvania is a rich environment that spawns some dense, strong, and rowdy smallmouth.  This comes from its size, its stability, and the heavy limestone influence of most of its tributaries.  Its growing season is shorter than the Potomac so in the long run the highest-end fish sizes are a toss-up--though rivers further south are also likely to produce larger fish.  In my experience the key difference between the lake and river fish is the value of size and growth.  A large fish on the volatile Potomac or the short-seasoned Delaware or even the more northen rivers is a greater prize than a lake-bred fish with its easy access to a range of depths and temperatures.  River fish also tend to be leaner and have more distinct "shoulders" and bigger heads relative to their size; I presume them to be older.   See the photograph of Robert von Onselder's bass with a distinct bulge above the head and an enormous tail; note also Mark Frondorf's substantial fish with a distinctly broad tail.  Susky fish have both appearances, though in moderation; their rich habitat gives them bulk, and their river life gives them the river tone.  Even those fish tend to top out in the sevens; the PA state record of  8 pounds 8 ounces--caught in a lake--will not likely be topped even though the Susky produces the vast majority of PA citations for the species. 

The best example of all is Virginia's New River.  It's the only river in the country (with the exception of the tailrace record in Alabama) to produce a state-record smallmouth, and not one but two:  a 7-8 for Virginia and a 7-5 for West Virginia.  The New is impounded several times in its length, which creates an artificially clear and stable river, but the fish are unquestionably river fish.   Another interesting characteristic of the New is that it flows westward, from the VA mountains through the Appalachians and into the Ohio Valley--the second oldest river in the world.  Since the Ohio Valley is the original home of the smallie, the New may have some philosophical ancestral claim on them.

Rivers have many advantages over lakes.  They can be comfortably--maybe best--fished without fossil fuels and with fly rods; their cycles and flows are accessible and obvious for the anglers, so the restorative effect of fishing them is at least for me more obvious and pleasurable; and, as I hope I have shown here, there is something more satisfactory about catching the river smallmouth.

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