[willowcatfish]

So when I was out today fishing on the dupage, I saw smallmouth on beds the length of the river stretch I was fishing. I tried to stealthily position myself then make small flip casts onto the beds. I used a ned rig, a small tube, a small Senko but the bass would just completely ignore the baits no mattter how long I let it sit there, or wiggled it slightly.

I even slowed rolled a 2.8” Keitech fat impact over it. Nothing! Just ignored. I read online how everyone says that smallmouth are very aggressive on their beds and will almost hit anything sitting there long enough.

Not the case for me. They seemed more aloof than anything. I hit about seven beds scattered about with no hits. Then switched to fishing non spawning fish.

Is there anything I might be doing wrong? Or any different approaches I should try? The water is CRYSTAL clear, not sure what affect that has.

Thankyou

 

[Bob P.]

Yea.......leave them alone

 

[mike son]

Yep, best to leave them alone. There will still be fish to be caught around current but usually I just skip the whole spawn and fish elsewhere. They spawned early this year on the Dupe.

 

[willowcatfish]

Thankyou Mike! Will do. Well at least now I know there is still plenty of big fish in there.

 

[Jimbo Slice]

I don’t site fish for bedding bass but I do monitor them. As soon as the nests are empty there should be a post spawn bite.

 

[willowcatfish]

Thanks Jimbo

 

[SpecialEd]

I have fished for bedding SM bass on the Dupe in the past and I noticed that the fish are hyper-sensitive to your presence. By the time you are close enough to see the bed & fish you've already alerted the fish to your presence and they ignore your offering. Even if you are able to sneak-stalk up on those fish and get a bite, they really don't fight as hard as they do post or pre-spawn. Plus the gobies, darters, & sunfish blitzkrieg those beds as soon as the smallie is pulled off.

Even though the SM reproduce like rabbits on the Dupe, it would ony take a handful of unethical anglers to really hurt a year class of fish in a given stretch. Can you imagine what that would do to a stretch if the same anglers did this year-after-year?

 

[willowcatfish]

Thanks for sharing that SpecialEd!

I was around in the late 80’s and very early 90’s when the smallmouth population and fishing was bad. I was so grateful when the banned keeping any for a number of years and they recouped. I want to be apart of protecting that resource and not contributing to things going bad again.