(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Many of the best finishes of Pete Gluszek’s career have come on northern smallmouth fisheries, and while he can dropshot and drag a tube with the best of them, one of his favorite ways to catch big bronzebacks is with a crankbait. It’s a technique that typically excels early and late in the year, when the water is cooler. Wolfpacks of brown bass will eat aggressively, but they’ll also shut off in a heartbeat, so it pays to be prepared with little nuances and tips that allow anglers to eke out every last bite.
“Something always changes,” Gluszek said. It could be the bait or the wind or even the smallmouths themselves, but the key to maximizing a good cranking bite is to look ahead to how the fish will react when that inevitable change occurs.
They’re different than largemouths, he explained. While their green brethren tend to hit a crankbait after it deflects, smallmouths are all about the chase. Your bait need not bounce off anything, but it should be brought back to the boat using what Gluszek described as a “pulse retrieve.” When you feel your bait skip a beat, speed it up to trigger that bite, as it may be a smallmouth pushing the bait.
He also said that it’s critical to understand how the different species relate to cover. A largemouth will sit tight to a stump, waiting to ambush its prey. Smallmouths, on the other hand, sit off the cover and try to pin it up against the stump or rock. They’ll chase viciously, and that necessitates a follow-up bait. Often he’ll start with a tube, but after two followers that don’t react to the tube, he’ll switch to something else – like a Senko, dropshot or Ned Rig.
While there are exceptions to these rules, Gluszek’s favorite times are early spring (pre-spawn) and then again in the fall. The colder the water, he said, the more aggressive the smallmouths tend to be. Ideally you’ll be around perch, the baitfish that the biggest smallmouths tend to key on, and if you see a group of perch chasing your lure back to the boat you can expect to get bites really soon.
He rarely locks into a single crankbait on a given day. “Smallmouth are real fickle,” he said, so he’ll change depth, size, color or noise in a hurry. A Wiggle Wart is one lure that he depends upon heavily because it has a small profile and an erratic action. He also likes the Rapala DT10 and DT14, because they go a little bit deeper than the Wart and run true to their advertised depths. When the fish are shallower (especially when it’s sunny), or feeding on smaller baitfish, he’ll go to “micro” crankbaits to get the job done, and when he feels like a noisier bait is turning the fish off, he’ll often try a silent balsa offering.
No matter what, he uses a snap to attach the lure to his line, and he always changes out the trebles for EWG models. That’s particularly important when fishing for smallmouths, which tend to slash at a lure rather than getting it deep in their gullets. He likes a 7’11” rod and a high-speed reel spooled with Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon to keep those sticky-sharp hooks embedded.
If you want to learn some of Gluszek’s other tips for catching big smallmouths on crankbaits, check out his video on the topic, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
