It was one of the last ABA tournaments I fished that September Saturday, it was Canandaigua Lake, noted for both big lmb and big smb. I had prefished my way around the lake over a week or so and settled in on a 20 minute run to a point with several large homes. The point was mostly chunk rock and sand with a bit of sparse vegetation, I was interested in the shoreline though. There was a steep dropoff off the end of the point and a small creek on the north side of it, the water was cooling and the smallmouth were moving with the feed bag on. I started casting a Rapala to shore and twitching it back, I had follows by good fish from the get go. After a few minutes I went back through tossing a tube and dragging it back. I had picked up a few loose loops in the line so I cast it as far out as I could to deep water, pulled a few more loops off for good measure and started to bring it back when I got slammed, a 4 lber in the well. That ended my casting to shore. I sat there moving back and forth covering about 100 yards in front of the point tossing a 31/2 inch, sand with chartreuse tentacles on a 1/4 ounce ball head jig for 6 hours, when I left I had 17 lbs in the well, I had 2 4 lb plus break off, the extra weight of those 2 fish would have given me the victory.
I spent a fair amount of time without any action, then a another group of fish would move through and it would get hot and heavy. I didn't give up on the spot, I had to much confidence in it. I did try other colors and a few other soft plastic baits but would keep going back to the original tube I started with. Something I learned is that small mouth tend to be homebodies but that home can be large and they will roam through it, at times a lot. I also learned that lessons learned can be happy accidents.
The upshot, if you have a good result doing something different, such as making a long cast to clear loops out of your line, picking up the pace of of the retrieve when the bait is past the cover, letting your bait sit there while you untangle a snarl, anything like that try duplicating the action and depth, you just might be on to something that will let you fill the well.
Rodney
17 pounds is a strong limit. Very good point about the patterns we accidentally fall into and may not recognize.
Quote from: Mike Cork on September 16, 2020, 08:53:34 AM
17 pounds is a strong limit. Very good point about the patterns we accidentally fall into and may not recognize.
This time of the year on many waters it take 20+ to win and it can be a mixed bag or a bag of all smallies or all lmb. I love fishing this time of the year.
Rodney