No-Motion Philosophies for Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass

The Spot The Spot is somewhere on this reproduction of an actual piece of structure in an actual Minnesota lake. Structure specialists might point to A as the spot-on-the-spot, where the main basin approaches closest to the outer tip of the structure. At one time, A possibly was The Spot. Deep cabbage is denser here than anywhere else, and this spot is pretty consistent. B is another likely hangout—a trough through the center of the shallow zone 2 feet deep with various weed types in it. Many bass are caught here. Many might contend that C should be the spot-on-the-spot, an area of clean, hard bottom surrounded by dense stands of coontail and pads. Edges, baitfish habitat, and ambush potential make this a prime spot. D is another favorite, where deep cabbage and shallow slop are separated by only a few feet. When bass are highly active, this is a key spot. E, an inside turn surrounded by a dense wall of coontail with isolated cabbage, is often overlooked and highly productive. In fact, E is currently the second best spot-on-this-spot. But F is The Spot. It doesn’t have any cabbage at all, it doesn’t abut truly deep water, it’s small, the cup in the weedline is slight in comparison to E and B, and the diversity of weed and substrate types is low. Think about it this way: Most good fishermen looking at this map would circle areas A, B, C, and D—which could be why bass are more consistently found in areas E and F, where pressure is less severe. Deadstick this spot without knowing it, in tough conditions, and logic demands we concentrate efforts on A, B and C. And, in tough conditions, a plastic bait lying 5 feet from a bass might as well be a mile away. The same thing happens with smallmouth spots. Fishermen who constantly run and gun may never find some of the indistinct and isolated spots-off-the-spot that produce the best results.

L is for Location

The ultimate spot-on-the-spot is located over time. It doesn’t jump off the contour map for you, contrary to the assertions of most early explorers of structure fishing. You have to find these spots. In many cases, if you don’t know a spot really well, you may have a tough time deadsticking plastics there.

The largest boulder right on the outer tip of a complex of shallow shelves and reefs (a classic spot) consistently attracts smallmouths, but chances are good that it’s not the ultimate spot-on-the-spot. The deepest cabbage near the sharpest drop into the deepest water may consistently produce largemouths, but it’s equally probable most bass accumulate elsewhere most of the time. Get to know these spots and invariably it seems some isolated boulder near the middle of that shallow complex of rock flats and reefs has a pile of smallmouths around it every time the weather is stable. And well inside that cabbage line, mostly hidden under the weedgrowth, you might find an old log, pier piling, or sunken rowboat that typically outproduces the area that structure specialists would point to as the classic spot-on-the-spot. They might say structure ultimately led fish to this cover, but that simply isn’t so in all cases. The literature on structure isn’t wrong, it’s just not perfect. And no locational theory can be perfect. Fish are living things that adapt to change, forcing us to find more working theories.

One of the things they adapt to is fishing pressure. Deadsticking is, partially, a tactical response to the effects of fishing pressure. When fish stop biting moving lures, fishing pressure could be the reason. A straight-shafted spinner, deadly for smallmouths, is also a staple among steelhead anglers. After months of pressure, when river steelhead stop biting spinners on the swing, they sometimes swim up and pluck one that’s left sitting on bottom. Most steelheaders find the thought appalling, but there it is. When big trout or bass see a flashy minnow imitation glide to bottom and stop, curiosity takes over. Move the bait and curiosity can give way to wariness.

Fishing pressure is the sociological factor that leads us down this do-nothing path, but it ultimately helps us pinpoint bass. A pressured smallmouth, for instance, can be active and feeding, but may stay on the edge and rarely use the top of a shallow reef. A tube fished weightless or with a 1/16-ounce jig can be methodically presented around the edge of a reef and left to sit on bottom periodically. During summer on an unfamiliar but heavily pressured lake, when largemouths don’t seem to be biting at all, I try to focus on a small area that provides everything a bass might need (deep and shallow cover with access to deep water) and deadstick plastics from the deep weededge to the bank, concentrating on cups and inside turns in the weedline to start, and on the thickest clumps of weeds and slop. Pressured bass may not be buried in the heaviest cover, as they would be after a cold front, but they associate quite closely with it.

Deadsticking is the right response to certain environmental factors, too, like cold fronts and cold water, conditions which also point to location. Smallmouths do differ slightly from largemouths when reacting to cold fronts. Largemouths may just bury themselves in the weeds, and it is classic to find them hunkered down in the thickest clumps of cabbage, coontail, milfoil, or hydrilla, often near cups and gaps in a weedline. Smallmouths move off the tops of shallow structures to position at the base of these spots.

Smallmouths like to nestle into crevices, slots, overhangs, and cuts at the foot of a sharp drop. After a cold front, find the steepest drops off the structures producing the hottest bites and concentrate on depths of 10 to 20 feet (or even deeper in the Great Lakes and many reservoirs). Both species like to tuck in after a front, but deadsticking the spot-on-the-spot may work only for largemouths during post-frontal conditions. Smallmouths may tuck into dense woodcover or weeds in shallow environments, but otherwise they tend to leave the spot-on-the-spot just before a severe change in barometric pressure occurs.