Summer Small Mouth Bass bite

[BruceC2C]

Interested to know SMB bite status in your region so far this summer.
Couple of my go-to Maryland waters ( Monocacy & Antietam) seem eerily void of bugs and fish.
Even usually abundant and eager bluegill & fallfish that might help bridge a slow day are VERY few and far between.
Making my usual range of presentations......in various locations of above creeks.
Weird & Discouraging

 

[afishinado]

BruceC2C wrote:
Interested to know SMB bite status in your region so far this summer.
Couple of my go-to Maryland waters ( Monocacy & Antietam) seem eerily void of bugs and fish.
Even usually abundant and eager bluegill & fallfish that might help bridge a slow day are VERY few and far between.
Making my usual range of presentations......in various locations of above creeks.
Weird & Discouraging

Overall the my SMB fishing, as well other anglers I've talked to, and also most of the reports I've read indicate that the fishing has been slow so far this summer.

Reports are getting better, mostly smaller fish, but that's not unusual early in the season. The bigger fish are often a little late to become active right after the spawn, which was by most accounts a little late this year because of the cooler than normal spring weather.

Anyway, hopefully things will change for the better soon. Keep on looking. My best advice is to search different water types and areas for active fish. Also change up techniques, rigs and flies until you find them. Good luck.

 

[bigjohn58]

Awful...down right awful! I'm giving it a break for a while.

 

[sarce]

Fished Deer Creek in MD on Sunday for 4 hours. It was bad. 3 bass, zero sunfish, only 3 or 4 fallfish. My dad has reported the same on a small SE PA warm water creek.

 

[dc410]

Fished a central PA stream today. Water level was low and clear. Absolutely crushed fish the whole time. Nothing big, largest fish was probably 14”. Fished the deeper sections with moving water and passed over the rest. Spooked a lot of YOY Smallies hanging out along the shallow sunny banks. Mostly focused on the moving shaded water with some depth and structure and there was literally a fish (or 2) in every location where there should have been one. The really interesting thing is, I fished this same section of stream in the summer of ‘18 under better conditions and couldn’t buy a hit, except for the 20+ incher I caught in a deep run dredging a crayfish pattern at the end of the outing. What a difference 2 years makes in the Smallmouth population on the same stretch of stream.

 

[bigjohn58]

dc410 wrote:
Fished a central PA stream today. Water level was low and clear. Absolutely crushed fish the whole time. Nothing big, largest fish was probably 14”. Fished the deeper sections with moving water and passed over the rest. Spooked a lot of YOY Smallies hanging out along the shallow sunny banks. Mostly focused on the moving shaded water with some depth and structure and there was literally a fish (or 2) in every location where there should have been one. The really interesting thing is, I fished this same section of stream in the summer of ‘18 under better conditions and couldn’t buy a hit, except for the 20+ incher I caught in a deep run dredging a crayfish pattern at the end of the outing. What a difference 2 years makes in the Smallmouth population on the same stretch of stream.

I probably could have downsized what I was throwing my last outing and caught more fish but I'm not after 5-8 inchers. I did see quite a few like that which is good for the future. Anymore these days I'd take that one 20+ incher over a bunch of dinks.

 

[Dave_W]

I'm withholding judgement as I haven't been out enough to form any conclusions.

I fish little creeks a lot in the summer and from what I've seen so far, the trends some of you have identified seem to be what I'm seeing too: Lots of juvenile fish and good YOY but not as many larger fish.

Was out briefly on one of my favorite local creeks this morning and was pleased to see the number of YOY SMBs was very high (also very high juvenile hog suckers, as I noticed last year too).

 

[jifigz]

The Juniata has been treating me well. Lots of fish, some decent size, but no redbreast. Redbreasts are one of my favorite fish.

I don't go for big bass this time of year, I just fish and am happy catching numbers. Big fish time is a few months out.

 

[fritz]

I was out the last two evenings in a medium size warm water creek. a good number of smallmouth in the 6 to 10" range. Loads of crawfish. Best numbers of bass were near the river mouth. They were just kinda stacked up in a deep run there. Last night was a bit of a slow go for me since I was wading upstream in a boulder field. Anywhere there was some depth and current there was one or two smallmouth. Nice topwater bite the first night for about an hour or so.

 

[henrydavid]

North Branch Susquehanna has been fishing fairly well, sulphurs are out just about every evening, only dry fly action has been at sunset or after dark.

 

[Swattie87]

Fished two Lebanon County sections of Swatara Creek today. Struck out on Smallies but caught decent numbers, and a fair mix of Sunnies (mostly Redbreasts), Fallfish, and one LMB and one big Rock Bass. Saw several low to mid teens Smallies, but they had lockjaw and/or I couldn’t figure them out.

Pcray (yes pcray) floated by on a yak and said he got into a few Smallies, and one real nice one.

I was fishing a small BH Bugger mostly, but when I’d find a pod of Sunnies along the bank I’d switch to a Bumblebee X Caddis and catch them on top. Good fun.

 

[Baron]

Swattie87 wrote:
Fished two Lebanon County sections of Swatara Creek today. Struck out on Smallies but caught decent numbers, and a fair mix of Sunnies (mostly Redbreasts), Fallfish, and one LMB and one big Rock Bass. Saw several low to mid teens Smallies, but they had lockjaw and/or I couldn’t figure them out.

Pcray (yes pcray) floated by on a yak and said he got into a few Smallies, and one real nice one.

I was fishing a small BH Bugger mostly, but when I’d find a pod of Sunnies along the bank I’d switch to a Bumblebee X Caddis and catch them on top. Good fun.

Swattster, As you know I've been having trouble loving Buggers. What type of action are you inputting to them or are you drifting them only?

 

[Swattie87]

It depends. Experiment until you find what they want on a given day. The beauty of a Bugger is it often works on a variety of techniques. Typically though in my experience with WW species, less is more when it comes to movement. I catch a lot of my Bass on what amounts to a dead drift, or a natural swing across the current.

Today, probably 80% of my strikes with the Bugger were immediate, or on the initial fall after it hit the water, before I twitched or stripped it at all. This is typical for Sunnies. A few hit on the pause between strips as I was stripping the fly in. Don’t think I had one hit on a swing technique today.

 

[Baron]

Weird day for sure.

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
Weird day for sure.

Every day and sometime every hour is different. That's why you've got to try fast, medium slow, deep, shallow, strip fast, slow strip, swing, drift, let it hang in the current until you find what they want at that time. And it changes, so rinse and repeat.....

 

[Baron]

........rinse and repeat. its fishing not catching.......

 

[Swattie87]

Baron wrote:
Weird day for sure.

Eh, not really. That's how I typically catch most of my Sunnies in WW creeks. They're tight to the bank and hit almost immediately as you fish the bank. Redbreasts, later in Summer especially, will move out into mid-current and be in the same water as Fallfish and Smallmouth, but the other Sunfish species don't like the current. I saw several Redbreasts still spawning, and the ones I caught were still tight to the bank, so I don't think they've moved out to current yet.

The stretches I fished don't have a lot of fast current over boulders, which is where I suspect the SMB are right now after striking out in the slower shaded runs, and likely why I didn't turn any up. I'll make that adjustment for my next outing and pick a section with more fast water. (Think water that looks like Trout water.) There was one section like that where I was, but, it's right near a bridge and there was a guy fishing it when I got there. Probably for good reason. Didn't see him catch any, but I didn't watch, and moved on quickly. The swing technique usually works very well in this kind of water, I just didn't fish much of it on this outing.

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
........rinse and repeat. its fishing not catching.......

Some days you get the bear....and some days the bear gets you.

 

[riverwhy]

I fished the Swattie Friday 7/17 in the stretch below the Hershey dam. Caught a nice sunny on my first cast below the dam and missed something a little later also below the dam. Fished down to Hanover street bridge and picked up a fallfish. Not a smallie was seen. Plenty of litter and evidence of bonfires along the stream though. I have had poor fishing in the Swatara and that stretch in particular the last few years.

 

[Swattie87]

Sad to hear. I haven’t fished it much the last couple of years with all the high water, though I did fish that stretch in Hershey once last year. It was borderline still too high...2.20 or so on the gauge. Caught a couple Sunnies in the back water eddies, but that was it. Used to be good numbers of Smallies down through the fast water, but it didn’t fish well for me either.