River Smallmouth Bass -Presentation is Key
By Tim Sherman

At right: Tim Sherman shows a 3-pound smallmouth bass caught on the Potomac River.

Two of the most important aspects of angling is finding bass and presenting them with a lure they want to strike. The first part goes without saying that if you can’t find fish, there’s nothing for you to catch. However, how many times have we found fish – and found them tough to catch. It has happen to the best of us and the worst of us. If we believe that there is

nothing we can do about it than we have defeated ourselves indefinitely. There are forces, such as oppressive weather fronts that can really put fish in a funk, but we still must persevere by trying different presentations.

River-dwelling smallmouth bass can be feisty, but they can be persnickety. It may take numerous casts and several lure changes to get a contrary smallmouth to bite. Yet, once we find out what lure they want, and how they want it presented; the task of catching them can become much easier.

TUBE TRICKS
A tube jig is one of the most versatile lures you can cast for smallmouth bass. The most common use for a tube is to insert a jig head into the hollow body and craw it across the bottom. Most often the tube is used around rocky cover with this technique, because we know that smallies hold behind boulders and ledges and use them as out-of-the-current ambush points. So, if active bass don’t respond, something in the presentation needs to be changed. The first change I make is with color. I tend to start with a neutral smoke hue, but will try black/blue or green pumpkin shades if bass are unresponsive. This is the easiest and often correct change in presentation you can make to get bronzebacks to bite.

There have been many times that I have cast a tube along a current line and not gotten a bite. That is until I started reeling in to make another cast. The strike at the sudden increase in speed of the lure often tells me that a faster presentation is needed. The opposite may also be true. There have been times when I have been distracted, leaving the lure to stationary. This deadstick presentation is also well worth a try. Should the speed of your retrieve not be the culprit, try varying the weight of your jig head. A bass may want a faster or slower rate of fall than what you are showing. Also try a different rig all together. Rigging a tube Texas-style -- with a bullet weight and wide gap hook -- gives the lure a completely different look. On particularly tough days, it may take a combination of these tube tricks to catch smallies.

PERSISTANCE
Often times we know a bass lives in a certain environment. This scenario could be anything from a vast grass bed to an eddy to a particular log on the shoreline. There comes a time when you persistence pays off, especially when working one specific piece of cover.

From my first visits to the Potomac, the river has been good to me. My cousin Brian and I took a float trip with John Hayes of the Mark Kovach Fishing Service. Toward the end of the trip, John guided the raft into a cutout along a mid-river island. Brian was casting to a pocket that was carved onto the island. Positioned at the bow, I was staring right down the length of a deadfall. No sell-respecting bass would pass up this type of cover. Hayes suggested that we try spinnerbaits here. I cast along that log numerous times trying to slip the lure into the water without making a splash. Some casts were more stealth-like than others.

John kept us there only minutes. Brian had landed a few smallies to 14 inches. I cast the spinnerbait away from the log for several casts, then targeted it once more. After a cast that landed with barely a disturbance, I thought I had snagged the fallen tree. This was until I saw the line move. At the end of the battle I had landed my first 3-pound smallmouth bass. Had I given up on that great piece of cover, I would have never caught that momentous fish.

CHANGING LURES
Last June, Brian and I waded in the Potomac in the Brunswick, Maryland area. I worked a stereotypical boulder with a nice pocket behind it. Current was diverted to either side of the rock. Smallies stage in the calm water and along the slack edge of the current. With persistence I peppered the pocket and edges with tubes -- smoke tubes, black/blue tubes, green pumpkin tubes – without a bite. I knew deep down that at least one smallmouth had to live there. Before wading on, I clipped off the tube and tied on a Norman Quarterback crankbait. I cast the plug into the center of the pocket and cranked it toward the current. As soon as it hit the break line, the lure was struck hard. A moment later I landed a chunky 12-inch small.

Sometimes smallmouth bass don’t always want a lure dragged across the bottom. When a crankbait reached the point where the current diverted its path, a bass sees the lure as a baitfish struggling in the current, thus making it an easy meal. In this situation, a smallmouth is focused more on what is passing above him as opposed to below him. I wish I tried this concept a boulder or two before. I may have accounted for a bass or two more along the way.

Making the proper presentation to smallmouth bass is how we get them to bite. We may be fortunate enough to get it right from the first cast. However, they may be on a different agenda than we are, so we must adapt how we fish. The slightest change in color or size of the lure we are using can make a difference. Having confident that fish are holding in known location should invite us to try several different lures before trying another location. Yet, goading a bass into striking with repeated casts is also effective. By improving our presentations, the numbers of smallmouth bass we catch will surely improve.