By Ronnie Parris
Everybody’s heard it, size matters. If you don’t believe it, then you’ve never spent the night with a tent full of mosquitoes. No other time of year is that statement more true. Whether you’re throwing a size 14 Parachute Adams for wild mountain rainbows or fishing the lake for breaking spotted bass, you’d better be thinking small or you might spend the day fishing and not catching. This is the time of year that makes anglers pull their hair out. You work your boat close to breaking fish and make several perfect casts into the school with your favorite jerk bait, and you don’t get a bite. All you need to do is go smaller. Sometimes, the same lure you are throwing and getting no strikes on will produce “big time” if you only drop down to the smallest size it’s produced in. When you get a fish in the boat, it’s easy to see why; most of the shad they spit up will be a half inch or smaller. Being the bait is this small, these fish have to eat more so look for some aggressive early morning and late evening top water action.
Bass aren’t the only fish feeding on these small shad; you won’t see them on the surface in the mad breaks with the bass, but if you watch your fish finder, you will see longer thinner marks, usually from 60 to 90 feet deep, right under this top water action. What this is, are walleye and white bass, the first layer in the 60 foot range will be the whites. They will be the fish eating the shad as they dive to try and escape the spotted bass and the smallmouth. The fish I like to target are the bottom range fish, which are the walleye. As you catch fish deep, they will begin to spit up shad an sometimes this will cause a feeding frenzy. Some of the biggest walleye will wait till this happens and just sit tight and wait for their meal to drop to them. The key to catching these fish is to know your electronics and then “match the hatch”, so to speak. Don’t throw a 4-inch bait when the fish are eating half-inch minnows. If you don’t have a good fish finder on your boat, you’re still not out of luck…Watch for the breaking fish on top. Sometimes you will also see a foamy “slick” where the feed is occurring.
On lakes south of us, you will have gulls and cormorants diving in the bait. Around our area lakes, Kingfishers are usually present flying over to dive in for a shad minnow that’s on the surface. One thing to note is, this is the time of year that fishing etiquette is very important. Often you will have multiple boats running for the same school of breakers, so try not to get excited and get on top of each other as it’s awful easy for tempers to flare and things to get out of hand. A few fish are not worth an altercation that can change someone’s life. So, go out and have fun and remember to fish smaller lures this time of year. As always, be safe and take a kid fishing.
Ronnie Parris is the Owner and Head Guide of Smoky Mountain Outdoors Unlimited-Fontana Lake Fishing Guides, headquartered in Bryson City, North Carolina, heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. (www.smokymountainoutdoorsunlimited.com)