Down South it’s all about the shad, but if you’re after big smallmouth bass at some of the legendary lakes of the North and Northeast, shifting your focus to yellow perch is the right move. At Candlewood Lake in Danbury, Conn., (ranked in Bassmaster’s list of best bass lakes in the country) local guide and tournament angler Paul Mueller knows that his smallies make yellow perch a main forage, and he exploits them the entire open-water season. I recently fished this 5,420-acre impoundment with Mueller, and he made me change the way I thought about smallmouth bass fishing.
Southern anglers often go to tiny lures and finesse tactics for smallmouth, but these big Northeastern fish behave like largemouths. They chase big schools of yellow perch like largemouth torment schools of shad. Logically, the same tactics used for largemouth produce big catches of substantial smallies.
“A big deep-diving crankbait in a yellow perch color pattern is perfect,” he said. “And don’t worry about finessing it.”
A Bomber Fat Free Shad in Sparkle Tiger fits that bill. The BD7F dives to 16 feet and the BD8F to 18 and beyond, perfect for Candlewood’s clear water. Fast-cranking and ricocheting it off bottom and any structure allows Mueller to cover water and get those reaction strikes that turn on the schools of bass following the bait.
I also noticed that a more erratic retrieve with split-second pauses or changes in retrieve speed triggered strikes.
“Not many people do it, but adding a pause just as the bait leaves the bottom to come back up to the boat is a good way to trigger those smallmouth that are following the bait,” he said.
We spent the first half of the day on a big flat in the middle of the lake, focusing on scattered rockpiles rising out of 25 feet and topping off around 16 feet, as well as some of the most-unique structure I’ve ever fished. The Northeast is the birthplace of the United States, and some of the structure on this flat consists of house foundations and rock walls from the Colonial Era. These rock walls, or fences, rise about 2-feet off bottom and are perfect ambush spots for bass. We caught a bunch of 3-pound fish from the rocky structure on the flat, and picked up the day’s two biggest fish, one that weighed more than 4-pounds and the other a fat 5-pounds-plus.
“Use your electronics to locate schools of yellow perch near structure,” Mueller said, “but just as important is seeing how the walls and foundations are laid out so you can make efficient casts that keep your crankbait crashing into the rocks.”
Weedlines and breaklines are consistent smallmouth habitat, and during the afternoon we focused on a spot with sparse milfoil growing to around 13 feet of water. At the edge was a steep drop into 21 feet of water, and to make the spot even more appealing, a rockpile rose up to about 18 feet just off the drop. Mueller landed a 3-pound largemouth, a 3-pound smallie and a 4-pound largemouth on almost consecutive casts, while I backed him up with a couple smallmouth pushing 4-pounds on back-to-back casts.
The last area we fished was a weedline with scattered rocks and stumps, and racked up numbers of 2- to 4-pound smallmouth. Like every other area we fished, the presence of yellow perch and making contact with the rock or wood was essential to getting strikes.
“One key to this bite is wind or some current,” Mueller said. “Get in the wind and focus on those 15- to 23-foot depths where yellow perch hang out.”
On those calm days when cranking isn’t productive, Mueller says that a small swimbait on a jighead is a good option, but if fishing is particularly tough a down-sized castable umbrella rig like the YUM Flash Mob Jr. rigged with translucent swimbaits or natural-looking curly tail grubs can be the only way to catch fish.
As a Southern angler, I always associated smallmouth with rocks and largemouth with grass, but up North it’s different. We found largemouth on rocky humps mixed in with big schools of smallmouth, and plenty of smallies relating to vegetation. The common denominator was the presence of yellow perch.
(About the author: Drew Porto is a Senior at the University of Arkansas majoring in marketing, and is a member of the 2011 B.A.S.S. College Classic Champion U of A Bass Fishing Team.)