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July 6, 2023
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From remote lakes to the mighty St. Lawrence River, Ontario and Quebec offer some of the best smallmouth bass fishing in the world. If you’re looking to learn how to catch more and bigger smallmouth, the following tips and techniques will help improve your angling success this season.
In this article, you'll learn more about fishing techniques for smallmouth bass:
Anglers will find smallmouth around a range of structures, from shallow shoreline areas to lake basin structures with depths of 30 feet or greater. Points, sand bars, rocky reefs, boulders, ledges, contour bends, islands and offshore humps are just a few reliable smallmouth fishing locations.
Shallow to deep flats are other places to find smallmouth. The most appealing areas often contain a mix of habitat features, such as patches of vegetation, rock piles and sand patches.
Many Ontario and Quebec rivers also have excellent smallmouth bass fishing. Look for fish around current breaks created by wing dams, islands, humps, reefs, boulders and other obstacles diverting water flow.
Regardless of the waterbody you’re fishing, an area must contain ample food to attract smallmouth bass. Baitfish often factor heavily in their diet. Crayfish, gobies, frogs and various aquatic invertebrates are other common prey. If a spot looks good but isn’t producing fish, there’s a good chance there just isn’t enough forage, or the right type of food, to draw smallmouth.
Ontario and Quebec smallmouth bass fishing is excellent from late June to August and again in October and November. Sandwiched between these two time frames is the summer-to-fall transition. During this period, smallmouth tend to be more transient and often scattered, a behaviour some anglers find challenging. That said, smallmouth are a fairly active breed, and with the right fishing technique in the right location, you can often catch at least a few and enjoy a fun day on the water.
Certain periods of the day can be better than others to fish for smallmouth. Generally speaking, though, if a bass has an opportunity to eat an easy meal, it will most likely bite. To help stack the odds in your favour, it is a good idea to fish early in the morning and during the evening, as smallmouth are often active at these times.
On calm, sunny days, it is common to find smallmouth feeding and sunbathing on shallow flats. When the conditions are right, flats can be great places to catch smallmouth during the day.
Wind can stimulate smallmouth activity. Anglers are wise to focus on windblown rocky shorelines as well as mid-lake structures (e.g., islands, humps and reefs).
Part of the fun of fishing for smallmouth bass is being able to catch them using various techniques. There are too many to review in just one blog post, but here are three high-level angling concepts guaranteed to help you catch more and bigger smallmouth.
Fishing a horizontal-moving lure quickly is a reliable bass fishing technique. Smallmouth are especially susceptible to swift retrieves with spinnerbaits, inline spinners, jerkbaits, crankbaits, bladed swim jigs, swimbaits and topwaters. Any of these lures zipping past a group of bass can stimulate their competitive nature, prompting them to give chase and attack. Even better is the fact it’s common to catch multiple fish in short order from an area with this approach because smallmouth frequently hold in groups.
Fishing fast works for shallow smallmouth. This technique is also effective for bass holding over deeper water feeding on suspending smelt, shad, alewife and other baitfish.
Baits to consider: 13 Fishing Jabber Jaw, Berkley Choppo, Blue Fox Classic Vibrax, Keitech Fat Swing Impact, Megabass Vision 110, Rapala X-Rap, Strike King Red Eye Spinnerbait, Z-Man Project Z ChatterBait with Razor ShadZ soft bait as a trailer.
Smallmouth regularly eat crayfish, gobies and other floor-dwellers, so presenting a lure along bottom, as well as just above it, are important fishing techniques to master. Following the rationale explained in the previous section, any bait you can work quickly along the floor is a good place to start to appeal to aggressive fish and cover a greater amount of water in short order.
Football jigs rigged with plastic crayfish or creature baits are good picks. Either of these lures dragged along bottom or worked using a lift-fall retrieve will catch smallmouth. A soft-plastic craw or swimbait on a Carolina rig is another excellent option for pulling along the floor. Smallmouth can rarely resist a swimbait retrieved near bottom. Jigging spoons, bladebaits and underspins are other good options for fishing a lakebed.
Baits to consider: Berkley PowerBait Power Tube on Fusion19 Tube Jig, Freedom Tackle Football Jig with plastic craw trailer, Jackall Deracoup, Johnson Thinfisher, Megabass Dark Sleeper.
No discussion about smallmouth bass fishing is complete without mention of finesse presentations. Although they can be aggressive, smallmouth can also be very selective. Finesse fishing tactics involving small, natural-looking baits are often the secret for getting inactive smallmouth to strike. Here are a few worth trying.
A drop-shot rig is easy to fish and its configuration keeps a soft plastic constantly off bottom and in the strike zone of bottom-oriented smallies. Berkley’s MaxScent FlatNose Minnow, X-Zone Slammer and Z-Man Trick ShotZ are good baits for this rig.
A Ned rig is a phenomenal finesse presentation. It can be dragged and hopped along the bottom, or worked through the water column using a swim-glide retrieve. It’s hard to go wrong with a Z-Man TRD and Finesse ShroomZ combination.
A 4” wacky-rigged Berkley PowerBait General, Yamamoto Senko or other stickbait will also catch plenty of smallmouth bass. Let it fall on a semi-slack line to maximize its tantalizing quivering action.
Slowly swimming a 3” to 4” swimbait can tease strikes from suspending smallmouth as well as fish near bottom. The Berkley Power Swimmer, Keitech Swing Impact, Megabass Hazendong Shad, Strike King Rage Tail Swimmer are a few reliable plastics to pair with a jig head for this technique.
Downsized hard baits are also potent offerings. A size 3 Mepps inline spinner can outproduce a big, 3/4-ounce spinnerbait in tough conditions. Short twitches mixed with pauses using a 3” Rapala X-Rap or other compact jerkbait can make even reluctant, clear-water smallmouth come unglued.
If you’re new to smallmouth bass fishing, consider starting with a 6’6” to 7’ medium power, fast action spinning rod and a spinning reel filled with 15- or 20-pound braided line tied to a 10- to 15-pound fluorocarbon leader. With this set-up you can fish jerkbaits, Ned rigs, tube jigs, swimbaits, wacky-rigged stickbaits and small topwaters.
If owning multiple rods is of interest, a medium-light or light spinning rod is going to give you better sensitivity and performance when finesse fishing. Having a medium-heavy spinning or casting rod and reel is the way to go when power fishing with heavy lures (e.g., spinnerbaits, football jigs, etc.).
Other important pieces of smallmouth bass fishing equipment include:
Polarized glasses to help see structure and smallmouth in shallow water.
Tackle trays and a soft tackle bag for organizing baits and gear.
Fishing tools, such as pliers for removing hooks, scissors for cutting line and a hook file for sharpening hooks.
A sonar/chartplotter unit for the boat to locate good fishing spots and navigate safely.
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