River anglers can catch big smallmouth bass as soon as the ice clears. Here’s how one Allegheny River angler does it, but his advice works everywhere smallies live in moving water. The initial spring smallmouth bass bite on the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania usually coincides with the first week of official spring. Smallmouth bass begin moving from slow-current wintering holes towards shallower spawning flats.
During this two- or three-week period, bass stage at identifiable current breaks along the way to dine on baitfish and emerging crayfish. It’s a scenario that happens on smallmouth bass rivers across the northern tier.
The length of the bite-window is based on water conditions, with the optimal situation being slow, steady warming water temperature from about 40 to 50 degrees, a moderate-flow water volume and reasonably good water clarity. Conditions that will slow or stop the bite include cold snaps, exceptionally high or dirty flows. But, hit the mark correctly and you’ll enjoy fast action from increasingly aggressive bass.
Following months of cold, snowy and miserable gray winter days, smallmouth river guru Dale Black of Oil City, Pa., eagerly looks forward to getting his river boat on the water as soon as the Allegheny is free of ice sometime in March.
“Early spring on the Allegheny is my favorite time of the year,” he said. “Even though I’ve fished the river my entire life, for many years I thought it was too cold and dirty to catch them in the early spring. Then some river buddies spilled some secrets about how they stacked up smallmouth in the early spring and I learned what a great time this can be!”
In 40-degree water, you have got to fish the bottom with a slow, methodical presentation, according to Black. He has several rods rigged with different bottom-bumping baits, a skirted jig-and-craw, a tube jig and a hair jig, all intended to represent crayfish or bottom hugging minnows.
Black says it’s vital that lure weight for each of these baits is matched to depth and current, allowing the lure to reach the bottom quickly and then bounce or swim slowly along the bottom.
“The jig-and-chunk should be a reasonably small-profile, not a huge flipping jig with flapping trailer typically used for largemouth,” he said. “I like either a Booyah Baby Boo Jig or Pro Boo Bug dressed with a Yum 2.5-inch CrawBug or Chunk. I usually go with a PB&J skirt and natural crayfish-colored trailer in either 3/16-ounce or 5/16-ounce jbased on the flow conditions – whichever weight allows me to drag, pop and shake the jig lightly along the bottom without becoming buried in the muck.” Continue reading this article at this LINK…..
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