In the rivers I fish the most here in southwestern Ohio there is a mind numbing amount of prey available to a smallmouth bass. For example here's a list of small fishes a bass would eat on the little Miami:
Central stoneroller, Redside dace, Spotfin shiner, Steelcolor shiner, Streamline chub, Gravel chub, Tonguetied minnow, Mississippi silvery minnow, Striped shiner, Rosefin shiner, Redfin shiner, Silver chub, Hornyhead chub, River chub, Golden shiner, Bigeye chub, Emerald shine,r River shiner, Bigeye shiner, Silverjaw minnow , Ghost shiner , Blacknose shiner , Silver shiner , Rosyface shiner ,Sand shiner , Mimic shiner , Channel shiner , Suckermouth minnow , Southern redbelly dace , Bluntnose minnow, Fathead minnow , Bullhead minnow, Blacknose dace, Creek chub ,Mountain madtom , Stonecat madtom , Tadpole madtom , Brindled madtom , Northern madtom , Eastern banded killifish , Blackstripe topminnow , Green sunfish , Pumpkinseed ,Warmouth ,Orangespotted sunfish , Bluegill , Longear sunfish ,Redear sunfish , crappie Eastern sand darter, Greenside darter , Rainbow darter, Fantail darter, Least darter, Johnny darter , Orangethroat darter , Variegate darter , Banded darter , Logperch, Channel darter , Blackside darter, Slenderhead darter. Plus an assortment of fish fry of all other fish species in the river!!
So how do we make sense of all that? Well there are a few loose guidelines that can help. Most little fish that live in the open water of the pools are shiner or chub species. Species that are in general a deeper flatter profile. Sort of like a curly shad. Shiners are usually silvery with light shades of gunmetal blues or pinks. I like to throw the classic curly shad with the silvery sides an the painted backs as well as the new mylar versions. Many of the new mylars are some of the "fishiest" lures I've ever seen in the water.
Many of the riffle/rocky areas of our rivers hold huge amounts of darters. I love the new roundbodied
paddletail swimbaits for imitating these guys as well as a conventional curly tailed grub. Darters come in every shade of the rainbow but the majority are a brown orange gold type color or darker color. The closer I am to the riffle the more I throw slightly darker soft plastics. Smoke metalflake. Smoke with red glitter, brown and orange, clear with gold flake.
Then there is a huge variety of what ill call little minnows scattered seemingly everywhere. The little grey or silvery guys you see rushing out of the shallows when you wade. I like a clear with silver flake grub or the smallest curly shad in the same color anywhere in the river for this reason. That's usually what I start out throwing most of the time then adjust from there. Some of the new clear with mylar curly shads do a good job looking like generic fish food also.
I also think it pays to have some very bright colored baits that imitate nothing in particular. When smallmouth are really on the soft plastics but aggressive a bright colored lure can really expand the distance a bass can spot your lure and thus expand your strike zone and up your catch rate.
If you have a favorite section of river you fish over and over it might pay you to go to the EPA's electroshocking studies. Every river and stream in Ohio has been sampled by the EPA at intervals of just a few miles so it's possible to build a lure selection to match just the sections you fish the most. These studies can be found by googling Water Quality and Biological Studies Index. Here it lists all the EPA studies. The electroshock data is buried in the appendices to each study.
No comments:
Post a Comment