Tough bite smallmouth. HELP

[craigv]

Hi all, I am looking for a little input. I will give you specific conditions and an actual on the water scenario. I am looking for input to help me the next time I encounter a similar set of conditions.

This last weekend I fished an 8 hour tournament. The lake is a deep 2 story fishery with a good population of small mouth bass, panfish, a few large mouth.
water temp 75 degrees.
High pressure with SW winds at 5mph no clouds. air temp 85 degrees.
water clarity clear lime colored water with visibility to about 12'
primary forage crayfish and yellow perch.

visible fish were in 12-15' of water slowly cruising scattered sand grass beds on large flats adjacent to main lake basin areas.

My rider was able to catch one fish about 4lbs on a wacky rigged blue glimmer 5" senko. I on the other hand was unable to get a look.

I used top water early, drop shot later in the morning, finesse worms and wacky jig head senko style baits.

I can list more details but do not want to overload you guys with them.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for the input
Craig V.

[tntr20x]

Have you tried a heavy swimbait?

I've always had luck fishing a 6" or bigger swimbait deep. My favorite is the 3:16 lure company Mission Fish. It is one of the best weedless swimbaits on the market. Here is east tennessee, we whacked the smallmouth earlier in the year when the water was clear on swimbaits. Just something to think about. If they're not biting the 6", try downsizing to a 5 or 4. 1/4 or 1/8 hair jigs also are an alternative if they're not willing to eat a swimmer.

[craigv]

I have good success with swimbaits in early spring pre-spawn but I can not seem to get a good bite going in mid summer. I will keep this in mind and try working with this tactic a little more. Thanks for the input.

[fishtale75]

for smallmouth try hopping a green pumkin tube with a rattle on the inside, let it sink all the way down then just start popping your rod and reeling, similar to a jerkbait but faster, I used to live in Ky and fished Dale Hollow with my uncle and I gotta say even down here the tube is an awesome smallmouth lure, eratic movements tear smallmouths up

[bfriendly]

I dont know personally, but from what I have seen on videos etc, KVD loves to burn a spinnerbait just under the surface, with a heavy jerking(eradic) motion for Smallies.........did you try any of that? Natural colors when it is clear and Charts when it is cloudy.....wow,75 degree water.........cant wait til we have that again..........and BTW- great description, felt like I was there too!

[bfriendly]

Oh yea, and then the TUBE is his(KVD) next favorite and would probably be a better choice with little to no wind...........just like fishtale75 said.

[bassin]

The best lures I`ve used to catch smallmouth up home is the bitsy bug 1/4 ounce pig and jig[black].My favorite one is the fluke.Two weeks ago we cought 30 to 40 in about 3 hours 2-4lbs on the fluke.The next best thing for me would be the baby brush hogs.Seem to catch the bigger ones on those texas rigged.

[bfriendly]

Baby Brush hog Texas Rigged? Now see, there is another bait that I thought was a Carolina rig bait.........guess I need to start riggin up Texas Style again? When I first started bass fishing, the only thing we did was Texas rig worms........red shad, grape shad and June Bug! Of course this was in Florida!