Knapp: Finding hotspots by listening to the fish, keeping an inventory
There’s a portion of the lower Allegheny River — found within a several mile stretch that spans two navigation dams — that often excels at producing quality-sized smallmouth bass early in the spring.
The “hotspots” within this section tend to change rapidly throughout late March and April as fish move from deeper wintering spots to habitat more conducive to spawning. Having an extensive inventory of spots pays dividends. As such, I’m always eager to add to the list.
This was illustrated recently during a trip with my frequent fishing partner Sid Brown. The outing had been a good one, a fish here, one there, within areas that had been productive in the past. Given the frigid water temperature (41 degrees), and the previous two day’s weather where the air temperature had been halved from a daytime high of 82 to 41, I was generally satisfied.
Continuing on the day’s milk run, I pulled into a section where a small ditch emptied into the river. A subtle sand bar exists there, with smallmouth sometimes gathering up in the quiet water below. As is generally the case, I’d stopped the boat several yards upriver of what I considered the prime spot, to allow for things to settle down by the time it drifted into position.
My first cast, one with a 3/16 ounce leadhead jig/Galida’s Grubz combo, met with resistance early in the retrieve. The hookset produced a momentary weight, not enough to confirm it was a fish for sure, but likely. Holding the boat in position I made a second cast, this time hooking solidly into a 17-inch smallmouth.
I mentioned to Sid we should try fishing a more extensive section of the shoreline above the sandbar eddy, based on the two quick bites. It was a rather plain bank, a soft bottom of sand and mud that tapered slowly out into the river. It had never looked promising in the past, hence it had gone unexplored.
After motoring upriver about 50 yards, we got back to work.
The mucky bottom held dead weeds from last season, gunky stuff that quickly fouled a jig. We switched to suspending jerkbaits, working them slowly over the 3-5 foot depths. By the time we drifted down to the sandbar, we’d landed a half dozen smallies up to 19 inches, all on a Rapala Shadow Rap.
It ended up being the most productive area of the day.
Time will tell as to whether this spot earns an A-list on the milk run. Maybe it was a happy coincidence the fish were in there that day. The sun was shining brightly on the area, perhaps being a draw. Or the soft, weedy area may have held bugs the fish were feeding on.
Regardless, the moral point of the story is this: When fish are telling you something, it pays to listen. This includes trying areas that from our perspective don’t seem to have the character to hold fish.
Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.
