Rigged And Ready At Ice-Out

Suspending Baits

At the same point, right at ice-out, suspending jerkbaits begin to deliver and can be the most effective option right through Postspawn for big smallmouths. The Lucky Craft Pointer 78 and Pointer 100 are the Cadillacs of this genre, because they suspend so perfectly right out of the box. I’ve had great success with the XCalibur X series and the Rapala X-Raps, which sometimes need to be tweaked. The key, especially early, with water temperatures under 45°F, is to work a suspending bait down to its running depth and leave it alone for long periods of time. Deadsticking a suspending bait for a minute or more at this time of year can be deadly, but it requires a braided mainline and a sensitive rod. Strikes are soft, reminiscent of what you feel when a bass plucks a finesse worm off the bottom. Braids transmit that subtle take much better, and 10-pound FireLine casts farther with fewer tangles than mono or (for my money) other braids. When using spinning reels for these slow retrieves in spring, the line doesn’t pack right and it eventually leads to problems.

One of the best spinning rods for casting and working jerkbaits in spring is the St. Croix Avid AVS70MLF, a medium-light 7-footer that propels lures in this category long distances while allowing you to create a subtle presentation and feel light takes. Fluorocarbon is required here, too, and because suspending baits tend to dive into shallow rocks a lot this time of year, you need a tough one. The most abrasion-resistant fluorocarbons available today are made by Ande, Maxima, and Toray.

The Numbers Game

Few things produce more strikes in spring than swimming a 4-inch Berkley Power Grub or Power Worm on a light head. My tournament partner, Tim Dawidiuk, uses 4-pound Ande, but I prefer 5-pound monofilament. One of the few companies selling filler spools of 5-pound is Maxima. Ultragreen is characterized as a tough, abrasion-resistant line, but it’s reasonably limp and casts extremely well when broken in. Both Ande and Maxima lines seem to perform better the third day than the first, and both tend to be problem-free when given a good stretch in the morning before you hit the water.

A 4- to 5-pound line produces longer casts than an equivalent 6-pound line, but smallmouths are tough. I don’t trust many of the thin, limp, 6-pound lines on the market when tangling with a 5-pound smallie. So why not use braid with a fluorocarbon leader? Braids are fine when swimming plastics in summer, but slower is better in spring. The larger diameter of monofilament allows you to retrieve a grub or worm much more slowly while keeping it up in the middle of the water column, where you want it.

The best 1/16-ounce jigs for this technique remain the Matzuo Heavy Metal Head, the Gamakatsu Ball Head, and the Owner Ultrahead Darter. The Matzuo jig, with its fish-head realism and fluted underside, seems to keep the bait up better with tension on the line during a slow retrieve. Ball heads are universally effective, and bullet heads add action on a slow retrieve as the pointed nose is pushed first to one side then the other by water resistance during the retrieve.