There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to the truth, not going all the way, and not starting... Buddha
When people ask me how to become a better smallmouth fisherman in rivers one of the pieces of advice I always give is to go channel cat fishing in their river at least once a month for the rest of their lives. I'm usually looked at like I've got two heads so let me explain.
Your average smallmouth bass (8 to 12 inches long) is a crayfish eating machine. As the summer progresses he eats more and more crayfish as they hatch and grow till by the end of summer possibly 75 or 80% of his diet in some streams is crayfish. I'm absolutely convinced that the very biggest smallmouth, those 19 and 20 inchers we all dream of, got that way by making the switch to a diet of predominately fish as they get bigger. Studies show big smallmouth are the most picky about the crayfish they eat and prefer small crayfish about an inch and a quarter long. But those same big smallmouth love big minnows up to five or six inches long. So unless your stream is just absolutely crawling with crayfish, which most of the LMR and GMR is not, it's simply a case of more bang for the buck. There are more calories in a given weight of fish than crayfish and the bass prefer bigger minnows and smaller crayfish anyways. Again this only applies to big smallmouth not average ones.
Well channel catfish, like smallmouth, start our eating whatever they can, invertebrates, insects, snails, crawfish, green algae, aquatic plants, seeds and small fish, terrestrial insects. But here's the interesting part, at about 18 inches in length, channel catfish switch to a diet of mostly small fish. Bigger channel catfish have a diet composed of over 75% fish.
Lets recap. Average smallmouth bass-75% crayfish diet. Adult channel catfish-75% fish diet.
The average adult channel catfish has much more in common with a trophy smallmouth bass than your average smallmouth bass has.
20 inch smallmouth bass in your average stream are extremely rare. So rare that in many studies if one is captured while sampling it's not even used in the study statistics. It's considered an anomaly that would skew the results.. So how do you learn how to fish for a fish so rare that even if you knew how to do it you might only catch one every couple years? Certainly not by fishing for them after all how do you learn by not catching one?
Well what your stream has, if it's any kind of smallmouth stream at all, is channel catfish. And it's about a thousand times easier to catch a five to eight pound channel catfish than it is to catch a 20 inch smallmouth bass. And I maintain that you will learn more about catching a trophy smallmouth from your once a month channel cat trip than you will a dozen trips where you caught six or eight 10" smallmouth on roostertails or tubes.
There are of course important difference between channel catfish and big smallmouth. For example smallmouth are extremely loyal to their home stretch of river and in summer never leave it. Channel catfish on the other hand, while having a home range, will often leave it for a few days after a big rain and explore wildly up and down the river much like a shovelhead. I find it interesting that in one study channel catfish were labeled a mobile species while bass were labeled a sedentary one. Completely the opposite of how they are often perceived. Channel catfish when inactive and not feeding might bury themselves in a logjam in a bend pool or back up under a rock. But when actively hunting for food a bigger channel cat will seek out the same kind of places a giant smallmouth will after all they are after the same food. Learn to target and catch actively feeding big channel catfish and learn how to catch trophy smallmouth bass.
And besides if you want to learn how a river works your going to have to learn how its catfish work. It's my opinion that channel catfish are the most important predator in the river. I've used the analogy of Yellowstone in the past. Flatheads and really big smallmouth are like the grizzlies. Top predators but in limited numbers, not enough to change the whole makeup of the place. Average smallmouth and small catfish are like the coyotes keeping the rodent population in check and eating the occasional rabbit. But adult channel cats are the wolves eating the deer and elk. When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone everything changed. The elk numbers dropped and numbers of things like beavers and rabbits and trout went up. Wait, what? Beaver and trout? Well less elk meant less overgrazing along stream banks, more riparian cover for trout, more food for beaver. More beaver mean more small streams dammed which mean more overwintering holes for trout, richer deeper water and more food for trout. More rabbits because there are wolves? Wolves eat coyotes, less coyotes mean more rabbits. Everything is connected just like in the river.
Did you know that numbers of rough fish like carp are down in the Little Miami compared to 1990?
I think it goes back to our wolf analogy. Cleaner water means more food. More crayfish and darters in the riffles where small channel catfish feed, more insects and tiny invertebrates and plankton for catfish fry. More little catfish mean more big catfish. Which in turn prey on baby rough fish. Channel catfish are the wolves, the fish with the power to change things. Wipe out the big shovelheads and the trophy smallmouth and the river would still be recognizable. It might seem a lot less exciting to our imaginations but for the most part it would look unchanged. But wipe out the channel catfish and the web of life in the river would change drastically and completely.
Here are some great studies on channel catfish if you wish to learn more about this awesome fish:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CGcQFjANahUKEwj5jNnHu5HIAhWIkw0KHfj8Ap4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.unl.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1106%26context%3Dusgsstaffpub&usg=AFQjCNHpKNlnPxuqUhMjdvxMcH0n1KXHuA&sig2=qGIcTlHTCr97tIMmtCo0Hg
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=21&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBwQFjAAOBRqFQoTCIL0g9q9kcgCFcvUgAodNwIL_Q&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seafwa.org%2Fresource%2Fdynamic%2Fprivate%2FPDF%2FSKAINS-539-546.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHwoE1xR9AOhApeO4CAH1f1UkRIRQ&sig2=gei16Te7YwNaRkVBLVwR8A
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