Using Electronics To Tap Into Big-Water Smallies

By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

Catching smallmouth bass during the fall is usually the result of anglers having the bite dialed in through proper tackle selection and a magic lure or two.

Others key in on the trophy bite, and for that, there is no escaping the optimal use of their electronics. Top-rated Canadian anglers Simon Frost, Derek Strub and Bob Izumi all know a thing or two about putting big fish in the boat. Here are some of their tried-and-true tactics for using electronics to get dialed in on smallmouths on northern waters.

Tech-Savvy Trickery

Simon Frost is a Lake Erie ace who calls the eastern basin of the Great Lake home.

“Most guys over-complicate their electronics,” he said. “They try and interpret every little thing they see. They’ll change settings, mess it up, and leave it that way. Instead, hit factory reset and start from scratch again, you won’t lose any waypoints.”

Derek Strub, the winner of the 2010 Canadian Open of Bass Fishing, is one of the best electronics fishermen on the Canadian bass fishing scene.

“Guys should use clear water to their advantage to learn their electronics,” he said. “If you see a boulder in 25 feet of water, throw a marker on it so you know what it looks like with 2D, Side Imaging, Down Scan and 360.”

Strub marvels in the fact that anglers will spend thousands of dollars on their electronics and accessories, but never read the manual.

If you ever get invited to pre-fish with Strub, travel light, you won’t be fishing much. In a 12-hour stint of pre-fishing, he’s been known to wet a line for an hour at most and spend the rest of his time idling to dissect cover. He’ll approach an appealing piece of structure from a variety of angles but won’t stop the boat unless he sees fish. Baitfish are a bonus.

“If you aren’t marking fish with the quality of sonar that we are using, it’s not because of the fish are hiding in the cracks, it’s because they aren’t there,” he said.

When in doubt, he’ll move his cursor to the area on his Side-Imaging display that looks promising and punch a waypoint to further examine. From there, he might even use the zoom feature to magnify the key area in the hopes of finding key details.

Frost’s connection to his Humminbird units is much like an out-of-body experience, especially since acquiring the new Onyx 10.

“Not only can I see more structure, but I have a much better understanding of what I’m seeing,” he added. “Using the Onyx 10 is addictive; it’s like watching high definition TV while on the water.”

While he might initially graph an area in 2D to look for fish, if it shows any potential, Frost will go over it again with Side Imaging and 360.

“A transition by sand might have some broken rock, it might have some gravel on it – you are not going to see that with 2D. You are going to see hard bottom,” he said. “Side Imaging and 360 allow you to see the specific structure that you are fishing.”

Frost and Strub rely on Lakemaster chips to see the immense detail of American waters. Once he’s found the sweet spot, depending on the current and wave action, Frost will use his Terrova i-Pilot with spot lock, drift socks, or a combination of both to hold him there.

Frost reminds anglers that a softer bottom will appear thin and yellow with minimal “noise” or hard returns beneath the structure. A harder bottom will appear red with harder returns beneath it.

The great myth of electronics is the endless pursuit of the perfect arch. Strub knows better and looks for shapes, or a blob, since arches are extremely rare.

“A fish is a softer return than a rock appearing green or yellow and the bigger fish off the bottom will have a little red in the center of it,” he explained. “I’m looking for shapes or a blob; arches are very rare.”

Bob Izumi, who won the 1,000 Islands Northern Rayovac Seres in 2011, relies heavily on his Lowrance HDS 10 units mounted at the bow and console of his boat to initially find fish, often looking for multiple fish with the knowledge that he might have to sift through a school before he gets into some good ones.

“I like to fish areas that hold multiple fish because not only can you can catch more fish, but there is that competitive nature of smallmouth that can fire them up and make them more aggressive with other fish around them,” he said.

Once the water temperature plummets to 45 to 52 degrees, the fish start to feed up for the fall.

Hunting for Big Fish

While water temperatures are key for getting smallmouth to feed heavily before they head into winter mode, few factors are as important to catch those bigger fish than location. Many anglers get excited when they find huge drop-offs and boulders, yet Frost dismisses such enthusiasm quickly.

“Big monster boulders and ledges hold dinks,” he said. “That’s daycare.

“Big fish are on those transitions that act as a highway to a rock pile or a transition from sand to gravel. Those fish are always on the move. Big fish return to similar areas because it is something different and it’s always holding food.”

Frost looks for these areas to be located in the vicinity of deeper water or wintering holes —irregularities that include inside and outside turns that have gravel or broken rock. Instead of fishing an impressive rock pile, Frost tries to cut those smallmouth off at the pass as they move along the transition heading towards key spots. He takes into consideration the wind speed and direction as it will influence where the fish position next. A substantial presence of bait means he’ll look elsewhere knowing that those fish have already been gorging on food.

Izumi looks for quality fish to begin grouping up by year class in tight bunches and large numbers. He’ll sift through those schools and look for the lunkers that might be hanging out nearby.

Strub admitted that while it’s quite easy to find parking-lot like structure built of bedrock and limestone, it’s usually devoid of quality fish in size and numbers, unless you can find an irregularity. Something so simple as rocks that break off the ledge, or a drop of 2 feet, are enough to hold quality fish as those rocks will attract gobies which smallmouth gorge on for winter. Such irregularities are often a throwback to the old adage, “spot within the spot.”

“The biggest fish will be on the best spot – the needle in a haystack,” he said. “Lake Ontario, Lake Simcoe and Lake Erie are huge; finding that rubble or boulder patch is really hard, but it’s where the big fish hold.”

Strub relies heavily on his Humminbird 360 to accurately stay on transition areas and target rocks or boulders ahead of him with pinpoint accuracy.

Side-Imaging

Despite the naysayers who argue that SI at the front of the boat is irrelevant since the boat is moving fast enough to paint a clear picture, Frost thinks otherwise.

“I’m not looking for detail, all I’m looking for is change in bottom composition,” he said. “There’s always changes in transitions, rock piles that are 50 feet away from you, there’s always structure changing out there. If you are working a transition, sometimes it vanishes because they don’t always run perfectly straight, they go left, they go right, while on my Side Imaging I can see that turn.”

Frost runs two Humminbird 1198 units off the bow so that not only can he use his Side Imaging with his mapping on one unit, and totally dedicate the other to 2D zoomed in.

Side Imaging allowed Strub to analytically pick apart those massive great looking spots, he once had to fish through.

“Find the high-percentage areas on a given piece of structure,” he noted. “Am I going to find all of them? No, but I’m going to find six or eight of the high-percentage areas that might hold big fish.”

To do that, Strub will look up to 150 feet off each side of his boat. That way, there is still enough separation of what is being displayed while still painting a clear picture.

Izumi will use factory settings with some minor tweaking of his Lowrance HDS 10 units. Frost and Strub run the settings below on their Onyx 10, Humminbird 1198, and 998 units:

> Noise filter: low
> Surface clutter: 7
> Graph: 7
> 2D screen: Original Palette
> Side Imaging: Amber 1 and Brown

Tricks of the Trade

Come fall, smallmouths are extremely predictable. They will either chase bait and suspend off the bottom in the water column or hug bottom as they gorge on bait and wait for their long winter's sleep.

The best way to target cold-water suspending fish is with a jigging spoon. Depending on how rough the water is, Frost will throw a 1/2- to 1-ounce Bass Pro Shops tungsten jigging spoon on a 7-foot, 2-inch medium-action Shimano Cumara casting rod paired with Shimano Chronarch Ci4+ casting reel spooled with 5-pound PowerPro braided line and with a leader of 10-pound Bass Pros Shops XPS fluorocarbon.

Izumi prefers a 1/2-ounce Johnson Splinter spoon in gold and silver depending on the water clarity. Like most anglers, he’ll upsize the treble hook with something laser sharp that he’ll have no problem driving the hooks home with a 7-foot medium-heavy Abu Garcia Veracity casting rod. Izumi opts for an Abu Garcia Revo MGX casting reel spooled with 30-pound Berkley Trilene Professional Grade braided line joined up with a 15-pound fluorocarbon leader. He will add a split ring to the bait to enhance the action.

Some anglers are known to wildly swing their rods in the air to lift the spoon aggressively through the school of bait, it should be noted that there is no stretch in braid and all actions are easily exaggerated. Some anglers will just hold their rod still and let the spoon swing side to side, which can produce vicious strikes as well.

While Strub always has a spoon tied on, he’s a huge fan of blade baits like the 1/2-ounce Bass Pro Shops Lazer Blade. He’ll fish his fall-time presentations on a Shimano Sustain 3000 spinning reel spooled with 10- to 15-pound PowerPro Super Slick 8 on a 7-foot, 2-inch medium-heavy Shimano Cumara spinning rod. He acknowledges using a stout rod, but always brings the fish to the boat. Larger fish definitely have tougher mouths and hook penetration is key.

If Strub finds a strong concentration of gobies, he’ll use the same set-up throwing a swimbait in smoke/purple, green-pumpkin or black. The more discolored the water, the darker the bait. He prefers the Jackall Ammonite Shad, the X-Zone Swammer, and BPS Speed Shad, all 5-inch baits, rigged on a 3/4- to 1-unce football head dragged ever so slowly enough to make the paddle tails thump side to side.

A tube jig will account for the greater majority of smallmouths during the fall. Frost prefers Phenix tubes colored in green and minnow patterns that best replicate forage and gobies. While Frost is a big fan of silver and gold flake, and lots of it, he’s recently found success in his older stock decked out with large square flake. While there are many great tubes on the market, he’ll lean toward the BPS tender tubes, Flipping tubes, and Phenix 4-inch tubes.

When it gets rough he’ll opt for 3/4-ounce tube heads poured on Gamakatsu hooks by his company, Frostbite Tackle, but most often opts for a 1/2-ounce head. He’s a big proponent of 5-pound PowerPro with a 10-pound fluorocarbon leader on his Stradic Ci4+ spinning reels mounted on the G. Loomis NRX Inshore 883S MR rod. Come fall, Strub will fish the BPS Magnum flipping tube in green pumpkin, watermelon and smoke variations, citing the 5-inch baits can produce larger than average fish.

When fish are feeding, baits can be moved quickly, but slowing down always produces better results. Tubes should be fished vertically beneath the boat. Flat calm means Izumi will dead-stick his baits a lot more.

“They just don’t want too lively of a bait, they just want it sitting still,” Izumi said. “Move it a few feet and let it sit again. When it is flat like that, they just are not aggressive.”

Frost is notorious for hole-sitting, or camping on a key piece of structure, watching his electronics and dissecting structure to produce quality bites. He and his wife, Melanie, won the Bass Pro Shops Lake Simcoe Open in 2013 doing exactly that. During the fall, smallmouths are gorging on bait, tired, sluggish, and laying with their belly on the bottom getting their last-minute feed before moving off to their wintering holes.

Nothing beats a hot fall bite on Erie, but the best day can be ruined if you are not prepared. Always fish with a partner and check the weather forecasts. Wearing a survival suit, having a cell-phone, and a pair of functional bilge pumps installed is non-negotiable. BoatUS is money well spent as Frost saved a bundle on a tow a couple years back – money he readily spent on more tackle, gas, and better electronics.