Suspended Smallies

Arizona pro John Murray scored his highest finish of the year so far at the recent Erie/Niagara Bassmaster Elite Series in Buffalo, N.Y., where he placed 3rd on the merits of his pile of 4-pound smallmouths. But he wasn't dragging tubes or deadsticking dropshots on the bottom, like many competitors did.

Instead, he targeted suspended fish.

Since he grew up in the west fishing deep, clear water with light line for fish suspended 50 feet down over 100 feet of water, it was a natural thing for him to use that technique when the situation presented itself at Erie. He was in his element – catching fish at 20 to 25 feet over 36- to 40-foot reefs and humps.

Middle of Nowhere

Fishing for suspended bass requires a whole new frame of reference. Many anglers start to feel a little lost when they get several miles from the bank. But that's usually where you have to fish on the Great Lakes (and in many western waters).

Edwin Evers, who bested Murray by a little less than 5 pounds at Buffalo and won the event, overcame that lost feeling by staring at the bottom contours on his sonar screen. With some ridges and drops showing, you can at least orient yourself to something and more grounded.

But Murray wasn't really looking at the bottom after the first day. He focused on the middle of the water column, where alewives and other baitfish were holding.

He fished the baitfish clouds, not the bottom.

"The big smallmouth would hit the lure on the fall," he said. "Sometimes I'd hold it there at their level or just above – but not below – and I'd see them shoot up after it. They were real aggressive."

That's what tipped him off to his pattern. He was catching smaller 2-pounders on the bottom, but it was a 4-pounder that ate the lure up off the bottom that got his attention. He found that by repeating that presentation, and keeping his lure at the level of the bait, he caught much bigger fish.

"That was the great thing about it," he said. "Normally you catch a mix of sizes when you fish for suspended fish. But these were all big ones."

Impossible Without Electronics

He said that the only way BassFans can work suspended fish well is by using a good quality electronics unit, like his Lowrance LCX-26. In fact, he said at Erie: "I'd have zeroed if I didn't have that.

"The whole key to catching suspended fish is your electronics," he added. "You can monitor the activity zone and see everything that's happening down there."

He could see the bait and the bass and the lure, and how everything interacted.

"The new electronics are so easy," he noted. "Just turn it on and it's got what you need already working. There's really no tuning necessary."

Of course, he actually does fine-tune his approach. "I turn up the ping speed as high as it'll go," to provide more and faster detail.

"And I turn up the chart speed as fast as it'll move. That keeps the screen updated and you can see what's happening. You want to see the first inclination that something's about to show up, so you can get your bait down there before you pass over the fish. You don't want to have to wait for the whole arch to show up, because then the fish is already behind you and you've wasted your chance.

"You need to have as much information on the screen as you can get without cluttering it up," he added. "To prevent interference I turn off the back chart when I'm using the front one."

He also mentioned that the shallower the water is, the harder it is to pick out details between the top and bottom.

Getting the Bites

Once you find the level where the fish have suspended – often at the same depth as the top of nearby structure, or the thermocline in lakes that stratify – it's time to put them in the boat. But suspended fish are notoriously hard to catch.

"What was unusual about (the Erie) tournament was that they were suspending to feed," Murray said. "They were easy to catch. Smallmouths are more aggressive (than largemouths)."

"Usually fish suspend on calm days, around midday, because they're inactive," he noted. "They move up to points and humps to feed, then go out and suspend. Sometimes you have to tease them – almost deadstick your bait at their depth.

"You usually have to use light line, and small lures," he added. He fishes a dropshot rig much of the time when targeting suspended bass. "I keep the weight and hook close – like about a foot apart. I fish them sort of as one unit.

"I start with a heavy weight to get it down to them quickly. I normally use an open hook and nose-hook something like a 4-, 5-, or 6-inch Roboworm. I just offer them a little snack. If they're not biting, you lighten up as you go until you find something that they might take.

"The fish at Erie wanted a really fast fall, but a lot of times you need to flutter it down to them," he added. "Sometimes they want a 1-ounce jig, and other times they want something light just floating by them. It depends on the fishery and the way they're reacting.

"Sometimes I might go as light as 1/8-ounce with a Westy Worm (a pre-rigged worm with a second hook near the tail), and they'll just sneak up and grab it by the tail. You have to experiment with how you work your bait."

Once he detects a bite – often just a mushy pressure bite – his hookset isn't a powerful one. "You just sweep it into them," he noted. "They take the bait fairly gingerly, so you don't want to be jerking on them." All you need to do is start reeling fast and then sweep the rod as the line gets tight.

Gear Notes

Murray used the following gear at Buffalo:

> 7'3" medium-action Powell rod, Daiwa Sol spinning reel, 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Kanji tungsten dropshot weight.

> He fished a Berkley Gulp! Alive leech (black) with a 1/0 Roboworm ReBarb hook, and a Berkley Gulp! goby with a 1/0 Gamakatsu dropshot hook.