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“This place makes me feel like I’m on Lake Cherokee fishing for smallmouth,” he said. “The forage here is pretty small, and the Flatnose Minnow matches it pretty well.”
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“The Lil’ General is just a go-to bait for me when fishing for smallmouth. I can cast it or drop it straight down under the boat.” he said. “This place is definitely different than the Great Lakes smallmouth. They almost feel like they feed more like southern smallmouth.”
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“I’m trying to cover a lot of water,” Hamilton said. “When it comes to smallmouth that don’t key in on Goby, you have the ability to throw baits like swimbaits and other moving baits.”
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“You don’t really think about a Carolina rig as a bait you cover a lot of water with, but you can cast it a country mile and drag it across a large area.”
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“The biggest difference between these smallmouth and Great Lakes smallmouth is the forage base,” Shryock said. “With no goby here, the fish tend to be more nomadic and follow the bait around.”
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“With the baitfish forage, I’m really trying to imitate that profile.” he said. “Also, the Maxscent will help trigger those fish to bite and hang on longer.”
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“It seems to me that these fish relate to bait way more than structure,” he said. “There’s still a few fish that are hanging around the rocks that are still in the water, so I’ll use the drop shot to try to pick a few of those fish off.”
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“I’m just going to throw the swimbait around the suspended fish,” he said. “They’re still relating to the points, but they’re mostly chasing bait around the points.”
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“These fish up here are liable to be on random shoals or points with nothing on it,” Palmer said. “The FF Sonar Minnow is the right size of the bait that they are eating. It’s like a little piece of candy for them.”
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“I’m going to stick with the Yum Scottsboro Swimbait quite a bite,” he said. “It’s actually the 3 1/2- inch swimbait. I’m really trying to get rid of the smaller fish with this bait, because the fish that can eat this size are going to the right ones.”
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“The smallmouth here are pretty nomadic roamers,” he said. “They tend to act more like spotted bass in a herring lake. The crankbait will be for any offshore structure with hard bottom.”
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“I’m not really fishing the drop shot vertical, but rather throwing it out and dragging it back,” he said.
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“I’m wanting the bait to fall fast in front of their face,” Lowen said.
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“These fish actually feed on some bigger bait like cisco or smelt,” he said. “I think that a lot of the bait is out in deep water. The smallmouth will get out there and follow the bait like stripers.”
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“Smallmouth are notoriously nomadic, but these fish are next level nomadic,” Palaniuk said. “The big difference here is that there’s not really any forage that lives on the bottom, so these fish don’t have to sit by a rock.
“The Hot Shot Minnows on the jighead is more for those suspended fish. They could be two feet down over 80-foot or two feet off the bottom in 25-foot. The drop shot is for the fish that get under the boat or pitching around on the breaks that they’re setting up on.”
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“I’m going to fish the swimbait somewhat similar to the way I’ll fish the Hot Shot Minnows on the jighead,” he said. “You can cover a little more water with the Swammer.”