It’s a habit of mine to peer into the mouth of a fish while unhooking it for any evidence of what it might have been eating.

Adhering to this practice, I was curious about what looked to be antennae peaking from the gullet of the smallmouth bass I’d just landed. The scene was the Allegheny River during a recent outing.

With forceps I removed the critter, which appeared to be some kind of stonefly nymph. When I returned home later that day an online search helped me narrow it down to a giant stonefly nymph, which correlated with the two-inch length of the extracted bug.

It had been a great day on the water with over three dozen smallmouth bass caught and released, most of them quality fish from 15 inches to nearly 20. The discovery of the big nymph got my partner Dave Keith and I to wondering if that was the reason the hottest bait of the day had been a tiny hair jig tied with rabbit fur. The size and profile of the jig would be a good representation of the bug. Or perhaps just a happy coincidence as it’s tough to say what a bass thinks it’s eating when it takes a bottom-oriented bait such as a hair jig, tube jig, twister tail, or Ned Rig (finesse-sized jig/worm combo).

Regardless, the rabbit fur jig has been a steady producer for me for the past decade or so. I suppose they are available commercially, but I tie my own as it’s easy to do.

I find jigs of 3/16 ounce to be ideal for fishing the Allegheny as well as our area lake s. As such, I start with a leadhead jig of that weight, one with a 1/0 light wire hook. The jig is given a coat of powder coat paint. I like olive green hair jigs, but also use black and brown.

Other components include 210 denier thread and rabbit fur strips of both regular and crosscut. I won’t get into the details of how to tie the jig as there are many online videos that show the process much better than I can explain it.

Smallmouth bass are my favorite fish for a variety of reasons, one being that they can be caught in so many ways. It’s fun to theorize that you’re matching their forage when occurrences happen as I noted here. But in all fairness, some of the fish we caught had tails coming out their gullets of what appeared to be chubs or suckers. There was likely an underwater buffet taking place.

Sometimes “hot bites” are a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I recall a river outing a couple of years ago, one taken in late April. As we drifted along an island, my boat partners Ed and Thomas cast soft fluke-style jerkbaits out in the flow.

When they each hooked up, it seemed wise to anchor the boat and work the area more thoroughly. For the next half hour, they took turns casting, setting the hook, and then bringing in a hefty smallmouth bass. I was happy to do the netting chores. When it was over, the deck of the boat sported several darters, baitfish the bass had tossed up when being landed.

Spring is a great time to be fishing as it’s one of the best for catching numbers of big fish.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle