(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.)
Coming off a win at Mille Lacs and a near-win in La Crosse, Seth Feider has rightfully claimed a spot as one of the savviest smallmouth anglers in the world. As a general rule, he’s not as interested in catching hundreds of little brown fish as he is in winning tournaments, and that requires that he consistently target the 4- and 5-pound beasts. While a dropshot and a jig might be good tools in some circumstances, when he’s after the jumbos he turns to a different lure.
“Most of the biggest smallmouths I’ve ever caught have been on a swimbait,” he explained.
In some circumstances, typically in clearer water or in river systems where a 3-pounder is a really good fish, that might mean little 2 1/2 to 3-inch models. In those circumstances he’ll use spinning gear and a 1/16- to 1/4-ounce jighead. At the other extreme, he’ll fish 5- to 6-inch swimbaits like the Dream Smasher, the Rago BVD3D or similar baits from Savage Gear and Huddleston.
Most often in tournament situations, though, he finds himself throwing 3 1/2- to 4 1/2-inch swimbaits on 1/4- to 1/2-ounce heads. His absolute favorite is a 4-inch model made by Daiwa but not sold in the United States. It’s closest replica sold stateside is the Keitech Easy Shiner. That’s the bread and butter for catching 2- to 7-pound tournament-class slammers.
He’ll fish it on a 7-foot medium action rod that’s fairly soft “to let the fish get it.” He explained that beginners often miss the fish because the natural instinct is to jerk the second you feel the bite. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Instead, you “just wind into him. It may take two or three swallows for him to get it right.” He typically starts off with a 3/8-ounce jighead in water less than 20 feet deep and goes to a 1/2-ounce version when the water is deeper than 20, and he uses 15 pound fluorocarbon. “Anything less and you’ll have break-off issues,” he said. “I still check it every few casts.” It’s especially important to be vigilant in water with zebra mussels or similar abrasives.
Suspended smallmouths move around too much to be “video-gamed” like their bottom-related brethren, so when he sees them suspended on his graph, one key retrieve is to let the lure fall on a semi-taut line, counting it down until it gets to the desired water depth, and then allow it to swing slowly through the water column.
“You can fish a bait above smallmouths but you can’t fish a bait below smallmouths,” he advised. “Their instinct is to come up. They’re very visual predators.”
Another situation where Feider relies on swimbaits for bruiser smallmouths is when the umbrella rig is in play. He recalled that when the rig first started to earn tournament wins in the South, it remained largely unknown up north and a “couple of hillbillies from Missouri” ran away with the Sturgeon Bay Open by using it. His favorite is the Hog Farmer Rig, which he said provides the best quality. There are various configurations available, but his go-to uses five wires and four blades.
While different states allow different numbers of hooks, Feider uses three weighted heads no matter what – a jighead in the middle and either dummies or jigheads on the bottom two. That allows the rig to swim properly without spinning. He’ll put a bigger, brighter bait in the middle and less gaudy ones on the bottom – often a 4-inch white or chartreuse bait for the target and 3-inch more translucent models on the bottom. There’s no finesse involved in this hookset. He likes 25-pound fluorocarbon, which allows him to bang it off the rocks comfortably, and when the strike comes he’ll “crank down and hammer ‘em.”
The final scenario in which swimbaits excel for smallmouths is when dropshotting. In fact, it’s the often “the only thing I’ll throw on a smallmouth bed,” Feider said. He likes a short 3- to 4-inch leader to make it look like the lure presents a threat to the eggs, and because these fish typically aren’t line-shy, he’ll go up to 12-pound fluorocarbon.
While Feider uses a cylindrical weight for most of his dropshotting, this is one of the rare times that he’ll use a ball-shaped sinker. That’s specifically because it doesn’t slide off of cover as easily, so he can wedge it up against the smallest pebble and twitch it until the territorial smallmouth goes crazy.
If you want to know the special way that Feider rigs his swimbait on the hook for dropshotting and some of the other tricks he’s developed over the years, check out his full video seminar about how to fish swimbaits for big brown fish, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
