Interesting smallmouth catch

[fishboy]

I was fishing in the Haliburton area a few days back. The water is still relatively cold (70-72 F) for this time of year and I haven't found an established pattern yet, and have found the smallies to be scattered. I've traditionally had softwater success vertical jigging for lakers at my ice fishing spots and decided to stop and see if I could mark anything while moving from one smallie spot to another. I was sitting over 75' of water when I heard a fish break the surface out in deeper water, followed by another splash soon after, so I headed in that direction and marked a school of herring or smelt about 15' down over 130' of water. Hearing another splash, I threw a smoke/white laminate tube in that direction and bang, a nice hit. It honestly felt like a laker with a few good tail pumps and some digging toward bottom, but it turned out to be a nice fat 19" smallie who must have been out chasing dinner in the open water. It's certainly the deepest water depth I've caught a smallie on.

[Pigeontroller]

Open water bait= predators.

[Joeytier]

Smallies will push bait on the surface over deep basins very regularly, especially with a forage base like herring and smelt.

[kickingfrog]

I think part of it is that we are so used to either fishing for them near the shore or shoals that we don't bother even looking for them suspended over deep water.

[fishboy]

I've caught them before over deeper water, but never the 130' mark...this spot is close though to a pretty steep drop not that far from shore. I think both the lakers and smallies trap the baitfish between the deeper water and this steep drop and chow down.

[Rod Caster]

saw the exact same thing yesterday except the smallies were hitting small flies over 30-40fow. Hard to get a bite.

[Tim Mills]

I've read some similar articles about spinner baits being used to draw smallies up from deep water.

[Old Ironmaker]

Caught a slab smallie this week trolling Erie on 5 colours in 85' of water looking for Walleye on a harness. They will chase the same baitballs.

 

Nice catch and surprise fishboy from Hamilton.

[misfish]

saw the exact same thing yesterday except the smallies were hitting small flies over 30-40fow. Hard to get a bite.

 

Funny,we also seen this. They looked like smelts,then there was the odd big boil. Casting into them resulted no hook ups.

[singingdog]

No reason that smallies wouldn't be over 130 FOW, especially if that is where the food is. On a couple of my favorite lakes, I routinely catch them over 110 FOW. It can be very frustrating fishing, but one constant is that the bass are under the baitfish looking up. Ironically, topwater lures can be a great way to get their attention. My lure selection for those lakes is very different than typical summer smallie fishing: tailspins, spoons and blade baits all work well in those open water situations.