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Slow and Low: Slow Rollin’ for River Smallmouth
Looking down the spinnerbait aisle of an average outdoor store, you are likely to see a lot of the same thing: chartreuse or white skirts, and willow blades. This narrow view of what a spinnerbait is, and how to fish it can seriously limit your catch. The average angler throws a spinnerbait to the shore, immediately engages the reel and starts burning it back, never letting it fall more than a few feet from the surface. On a great day, the fish will erupt from underneath to engulf this high and fast presentation. On an average day, fishing your spinnerbait more like a jig will land you more and larger fish.
On a cool April morning, Paul Gorman of Essex, Maryland was doing just that. Someone watching him from afar might have actually assumed that he was fishing a jig. Tucking his kayak into a shoreline pocket, he launched the Colorado bladed black spinnerbait out into a deep rocky pool. The bait fluttered to the bottom on a taught line. He watched his line come to a stop as the 5/8 ounce head smacked into a rock. Intently watching his line, he waited for several seconds. When he slowly started to turn the reel handle, he could feel the #4 Colorado blade thump as it rotated just enough to stay spinning. Every few feet, he could feel the lead head of the bait grind up the side of a boulder, or bash against a log at the bottom of the river.
Suddenly, the tip of his rod curled over, he sat upright in his kayak, and he started reeling much faster than previously. His kayak glided out away from the bank as he reeled against his taught line. A few more feet out into the river, he slowed his reeling, the rod straightened out, and he shook his head as he muttered something under his breath. He looked over to his fishing buddy who was watching him from across the pool and just said, “Snagged!” Later in the day, his frustration subsided, as a 19 inch smallmouth hammered his spinnerbait just after it crashed into a boulder.
Unfortunately, this type of spinnerbait fishing means that you will frequently snag in rocks and submerged wood. The types of casts that are safe from these snaggy pitfalls simply are not as effective as the casts that put your bait in danger of hanging up. As you slowly retrieve, make sure you feel out the ledges, gravel flats, or boulders on the river bottom. If you haven’t felt a collision in the last few feet of retrieve, slow it down some. Better yet, let the spinnerbait pause on bottom, and convince yourself that you have a jig tied on. Make casts to the opposite sides of submerged logs. Reel slowly enough that it crashes through the limbs. Expect the snag to happen, but understand that the collision that often results in a snag is the same collision that triggers the bite.
Knowing how to deal with a snag makes the process much less frustrating. Too often, anglers that realize that they have snagged express their frustration by pulling harder on the line. If the lead head is wedged between two rocks, pulling harder wedges it in there harder. If the hook point buries itself in a log, pulling harder just buries it down past the barb. When you feel a snag, point your rod straight upward, jiggling the rod tip on taught line. If this gentle high sticking jiggle does not work, position yourself on the opposite side of the snagged bait. This change in angle is the most effective way to free a snagged lure. As a final attempt, many anglers will position directly over the lure, reeling down to the lure itself, poking it out of the snag with the rod tip. You may want to think twice before doing though. A five dollar spinnerbait is not worth damaging an expensive and often fragile graphite rod.
When your snag is above the water’s surface, the same high stick jiggle can free the spinnerbait from the tree you put it in. Again, most anglers express their frustration by yanking on the line wildly. This often results in the spinnerbait coming free of the branch it went over, then wrapping several times around the branch above that. After trying the high stick jiggle, reel the bait up to the branch, slowly let it lower 6 inches, then give it a short crisp snap. Too forceful a snap will send it upward into other branches. Bringing the bait back over each branch one at a time usually results in the bait plopping into the water below.
Going low and slow to feel the structure requires a heavier spinnerbait. Common spinnerbait weights run from ¼ to ½ oz. Especially in the current of a river, 5/8 ounce to 1 ounce of lead may be required to stay in contact with the bottom. The extra weight means more violent collisions. The bass’s lateral line senses these underwater vibrations. A 1 ounce chunk of lead bashing into a log may get the attention of a fish that may not have felt the ping of a 3/8 ounce spinnerbait presented to the same spot in the same way.
Another type of vibration that the smallmouths’ lateral line can detect is the same vibration that Paul could feel in his hands as he reeled in the Colorado bladed spinnerbait. In general, the wider and rounder the blade, the stronger the vibration it sends out. Willow blades have their place, especially when fish are aggressively feeding, but other less popular options such as Indiana, Dakota, or Tortoise Shell blades provide plenty of thump.
These less popular blades provide a different profile than the bass are used to seeing.
Add an unconventional skirt color or trailer material, and the bait becomes even more unique. Andrew Dickie, of Bethesda, Maryland ties his own spinnerbaits with materials more associated with fly tying than bass fishing. Utilizing the standard silicone skirting, and adding materials like chicken feathers or strips of rabbit hair, his spinnerbaits are something that the fish have never seen before.
Pressured fish become conditioned to baits after being caught on them, and seeing them many times. New types of lures like the Chatterbait are successful in large part because the fish are not yet conditioned to the unique presentation. But why wait for someone else to think up a new profile, action, or color combination? Mail ordering his components and tying materials from Barlow’s tackle, Andrew knows that each time he makes a cast, he has the latest and greatest lure to hit the market: his own unique creation.
Using unconventional spinnerbaits with unconventional methods, river smallmouth anglers can tap into a method seldom used. The low and slow method of spinnerbaiting requires great patience with snagging the lure. However, this method of intentionally causing frequent and violent collisions with wood and rocks will excel when traditional spinnerbaiting methods are ignored by pressured river smallmouth bass.
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