Bassin' USA - Bass Fishing Forum Archives

I am new to the forum and let me say that this place is awesome!
I have been bass fishing for many years now, and when I lived in the south I enjoyed good success in local tournaments. Since I moved out here to Idaho I have struggled boating good fish. It is totally different fishing here, the biggest being that it is mainly smallmouth fishing. My buddy and I have caught up to 150 fish in one day, but they have no size. There are some good fish there but we have had a heck of a time hooking up with them. What would you suggest to try to get into the bigger fish?

Bryan, Welcome to the site:
Thanks for accolades for Bassin' USA. We do our best to help people catch more and bigger fish.
Need additional information in order to make suggestions.
Are you fishing a lake-river-pond?
Is the fishery deep-shallow-any major depth changes?
What baits have you tried?
What type cover is presnt-weeds-rock-wood-none?
The more we know about the type fishery the
better chance we have of solving the problem. I have a lot of experience fishing smallies on rivers, streams and major lakes. Johnnie Crain-Iowa Pro Staff

The main areas that we have been fishing are lakes that are made from the Snake river being dammed. There is a lot of vertical deep ledges, tons of boulder chunks and such. Very little wooded or brushy areas. We have tried and had a little luck on gravel flats. Depths are anywhere from 4 to 50 feet.
In the spring we do very well on jerkbaits, blade baits, and dropshot rigs with hand poured baits. I am thinking of throwing a spinnerbait more this spring. In the summer it os more crankbaits, hulagrub. dropshot, and some topwater baits. Flukes, devilshorse, and buzzbaits.

Our problem hasn't been catching fish!!! Our problem is catching bigger fish... I guess my question would be ideas and techniques for targeting larger bass.

Any tips would be very appreciated, and thanks for the sit guys, I will turn my buds on to here!

To catch larger smallmouth you'll need to get away from areas where there are lots of small ones. Big smallies love crawfish and aren't fast enoughg to catch them before the smaller fish do. The bigger smallies will be in very tight small schools or even loners. Look for them along steep rock bluff drop-offs. Mainly in the fifteen to eighteen foot zone. Use large hula grubs in brown or green tones. A half ounce jig with a number one Uncle Josh frog is another good bet-brown on brown.Don't be afraid to try full one ounce spinerbaits fished right along the bottom. Single- Gold blade, black skirt. Ten inch crawfish colored worms are also good. Even Cremes new five inch tubes will catch big smallmouth. The main thing is-avoid places where the big fish have to compete for food. Think vertical drops-crawfish and isolated places and you should start hooking up with bigger fish.
Sounds like a great place to fish to me!! Good luck, Johnnie

Thanks Johnnie, That makes TO much sense! I can not tell you how many dinks we were catching in a day. I hadn't thought of the bigger tube. I forgot that a 4" tube was one of the baits that we were slaying them on. The fertical stuff is going to be the first place to try. I think that the deep diving Jerk baits would work, suspending them along the cliffs. Especially the banks that the wind is pounding. You got me thinkin' now man. Can't wait to get out there. I will keep you posted. Thanks. B