Smallmouth Bass Fishing Lac Seul

Best Times To Catch Bass

As with most predators and prey relationships, the best time to catch Smallmouth Bass is when the prey is most active, morning and evening. Best bet locations are rock piles, rocky shorelines, main lake points, and weed bed edges. When fish are not biting change your presentation, either bait, or retrieval. Smallmouth Bass are found throughout the water column. Shallow to spawn, weed edges chasing baitfish and insects, rock piles hunting crayfish, to deep open water chasing pelagic schools of baitfish. Smallmouth are an unrelenting foraging predator.

Angling Tips For Smallmouth Bass Fishing

A spinning medium light to medium rod and a reel with a good drag will fit the bill when fishing for smallmouth bass depending on weight of the presentation. Finesse fishing using soft plastics such as tubes, ned rigs, wacky worms, and the like are probably the bass fisherman’s favorite presentations. Swimming bass jigs w/plastic, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and surface lures can still catch a lot of Smalljaw though. Crayfish imitation colors (brown, orange, green, and red) can be a big attraction. Rattles in or attached to a bait can work well also in dark water.

When the Smallmouth Bass are in a negative mood, live bait is an option. A leech under a slip bobber, a minnow on a lindy rig, or a crawler on a slow death rig can still put bronzebacks in the boat in severe cold front conditions.

Later in the fall, most of the Smallmouth Bass have followed the baitfish out to deeper water. If you locate a big school of bait fish, troll a big deep diving crankbait through the school. Natural colors matching perch, minnow, sucker, walleye, smallmouth bass, etc. will work best. Let the predator tell you your speed. While you’re fishing at our Ontario lodge, we’ll provide you with a map with some spots and advice to help you fish for Bass.