Burning Blades for Bronzebacks
This easy, yet fast-paced, technique will up your score on smallmouth bass this summer

Fishing can be so complicated these days, it seems like you should read an owner's manual before hitting the water. There are rods, reels, lines, and lures to match specialized techniques and situations. Spinnerbaiting is a welcome relief from all the high-tech hoopla. Although developed originally for largemouth bass, spinnerbaits are superb for smallmouths, in all but the deepest water. For the most part, it's a simple toss-and-reel-in game.

"This lure is tailor-made for big, clear water, like the Great Lakes," said Port Credit tournament angler Joe Muszynski. "Vast amounts of water can be covered quickly with this bait. Another ideal situation is northern lakes when smallmouths are crashing baits at the surface."

Scott Murison, a 35-year-old firefighter from Innisfil, is also a spinnerbait fan. "Last year, my biggest smallmouth in a tournament came on a spinnerbait," he said. "The Lake Simcoe beast was just shy of 7 pounds."

Spinnerbaits work well on smallmouths for a variety of reasons, but the main thing is they trigger vicious strikes. Swarming schools of smallmouths often converge on the lure, thinking it's an escaping baitfish.
 

The Fast Track
Smallmouths love speed. The faster you rip a spinnerbait past them, the better. Long casts and fast retrieves just under the surface sum up spinnerbaiting. It's a fool-proof technique that can help improve your game, but there are a few tricks to it.

"Pause or 'kill' the bait on the way back to the boat," said Muszynski. "The change in speed triggers any fish that's following."

Baitcasting reels with retrieve ratios as high as 7.1:1 excel for this style of speed fishing. Rods in the 612-foot range with stiff butts and limber tips are good matches for high-speed reels. A whippy tip helps fling spinnerbaits farther. Spool up with 14- to 17-pound-test monofilament line. The stretch of mono and the softer rod tip absorb the fight of a big bronzeback.

Time it Right
You can always catch smallmouths on spinnerbaits, says Murison, but he finds July to be prime time. "The fish are still shallow and haven't started suspending over deep water," he said.

Overall, however, spinnerbaits excel for smallmouths in specific situations. Calm conditions are more suited to finesse tactics, but if the clouds roll in and the wind kicks up, start chucking and winding spinnerbaits. Wave action and clouds seem to trigger smallmouths into feeding. Toss spinnerbaits along island points, rocky shorelines, or where sand abuts weedlines or mud bottoms for the best results.

A few years ago, Joe Figueria of Toronto and I were fishing a bass tournament in pounding rain. We got drenched - and skunked. Then, the wind whipped up. We decided to machinegun spinnerbaits over mid-depth rock humps and bars. Within 40 minutes, we sacked seven big smallmouths. When the scales settled, we finished second by 1 ounce.

Gaudy is Good
Some of the best bronzeback spinnerbaits have translucent skirts that are wispy things with amber, silver, pink, or gold accents over a muted white or chartreuse skirt with small silver or gold blades. A double willow-leaf spinnerbait with No. 4 bluish/green-flake clear-coated painted blades is one of Figueria's all-round favourites. He feels it mimics baitfish. Gold blades are another underutilized choice, he adds. "They work wonders in northern lakes that have tea-stained water," he said. For sunny conditions, Murison favours gold and silver blades.

Even though natural-coloured spinnerbaits work well, gaudy is often the way to go. Brilliant white and neon chartreuse with matching painted blades, usually one white and one chartreuse, are the Achilles' heel of smallmouths. Solid white, chartreuse, and even orange blades are Figueria's top choices. "Smallmouths are sight feeders and need to be able to home in on the bait," said Figueria. "Surprisingly, solid orange works well, too."

Size Wise
Small spinnerbaits are best for bronze-backs. It makes sense, since smallmouths have smaller mouths than largemouth bass. Strike a balance between blade size and spinnerbait head weight. Too large a blade will cause the bait to roll. Double willow-leaf blades are the way to go. They produce limited drag, yet offer tremendous flash. A 38- or 12-ounce spinnerbait is standard for smallmouths. Bulking up all the way to 1-ounce spinnerbaits has advantages, however. They cast like a bullet and you can increase blade size for more flash and thump when you need to draw big bronzebacks up from deeper water. Be careful of going too bulky, though.

Fortunately, many companies craft the bulk of the spinnerbait into an elongated head. Tungsten baits, which are heavier than other similar-sized baits, are another option to limit size. Figueria, though, prefers wrapping epoxy solder or tying lead to the hook shank of his 38- and 12-ounce baits.

The ease and effectiveness of spinnerbaiting make it a winner. Anyone who can make long casts, followed by quick retrieves, can be successful on big smallmouths. Incorporate the finer points presented here, though, and you will further increase your catch of smallmouths anywhere you fish. 

Issue: July 2008