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Russ "Bassdozer" Comeau
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Best Smallmouth Fishery In the World Today?

Story by Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson

Ice has finally melted across the international borders of the USA and Canada.

After such a long winter, the soft, warming waters of spring once again beckon us to bass fish in the North lands.

We're happy to be fishing hard and having fun again!

My partner, Dave Bennett and I spent last week down on Lake Michigan, fishing the big open team tournament out of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

I kid you not and I quote for emphasis, "Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin just may be the hottest smallmouth fishery in the WORLD right now!"

Years ago, Lake Erie erupted as a giant smallmouth mecca. It's true that Erie still continues to produce some stellar smallies - but Sturgeon Bay's the big dog today.

We took 9th out of the highly-competitive 200 boat field. We weighed a 28.20 lb sack. That's a 4.7 pound average for six fish  Pretty awesome for smallmouth fishing, eh? Check the tournament website at www.sbobt.org  for the results and look at all the catches over 24 pounds (a 4 pound average for 6 smallies). It is unbelievable.

It was great finishing in the top ten, but what's an even better memory and achievement for my partner Dave and I, we both caught and released our lifetime personal best smallmouth there. Attached are a couple photos from a small, friendly little three fish competition we had going with a couple buddies while prefishig the week before the tournament. We had three smallmouth for 18.90 pounds. My partner, Dave Bennett caught a 7.36 pound fish and I had a 6.25. Both were our best smallmouth ever! Our third fish was over 5.5.


Author Jeff Gustafson (left) with 6.25 and partner Dave Bennett with 7.36 - both their personal bests.

The fish at Sturgeon Bay were pre-spawn and relatively shallow. 6-12 feet mostly. We used a variety of tubes, jerkbaits, swimbaits. The neat thing here is that you can catch fish a lot of different ways here. We did have exceptional success with 4 inch Senkos (9S). We were rigging them two ways:

  1. Nail Shot. We were cutting a small piece off the end of a nail weight and inserting it into the head end of the Senko, then wacky rigging it. This was a small amount of weight, maybe about a 1/4 inch piece of a nail weight. Just enough to make the Senko fall a little bit quicker. We were throwing these rigs up on sandy bald spots that were surrounded by dark, dirty bottom areas. The fish weren't really suspended, but were near the bottom, just relating to the edges of these sand spots. They were in "eating" mode so if you caught their eye, they usually bit. We were catching a lot of fish.

    • Rod: Shimano Cumara 7'2" medium (CUS72M)

    • Reel: Shimano Stradic 2500 (ST2500FI)

    • Line: 6 lb Sufix Performance Braid w/8 lb Sufix Fluorocarbon Leader. The braid just casts a lot farther, which is an advantage in the super clear water. About 4 feet of fluoro is enough so that the braid's visibility is not going to bother any fish. You don't want to go to shorter than that because you can "shock" the fluoro and break it if you get excited and set the hook too hard because the braid does not have any stretch in it.

    • Hook: Gamakatsu Finesse Wide Gap 1/0 without the weedguard. The bottom here is clean so you don't really need it.

    • Yamamoto Senko: Color #020 (Black), #208 (Watermelon w/black & red), #305 (Baby bass), #306 (Natural shad), #330 (Green pumpkin w/purple & copper). Color #020 (Black) was probably the best though. These smallmouth really like eating black, goby imitating baits so that's apparently where the attraction comes from (I think). I'm not really a goby expert, but do know that many Great Lakes anglers heavily rely on black tubes and soft baits especially to imitate gobies. Green pumpkin and watermelon does mimic them as well.


      4" 9S Senko wacky rigged for nail shot or drop shot applications.
       

  2. Drop Shot. When the wind blew, we found it necessary to dropshot instead, in order to help anchor our Senkos to the bottom - but we were still wacky-rigging on the drop-shot. When the wind blows, it is too hard to fish a traditional wacky rig but the drop shot was effective at hanging the Senko in specific spots. This would keep the bait near the edges of the sand spots (anywhere from the size of a truck to the size of a house). If your bait is a few feet away from these spots and the edges, you won't get a bite, so it was very important to put your bait in these specific locations.

    • Rod: Shimano Crucial Drop-Shot Spinning Rod 7'2" medium heavy (CRSDX72MH)

    • Reel: Same as above

    • Line: Same as above

    • Hook: Same with 1/8 ounce drop-shot weight.

    • Yamamoto Senko: Colors same as above.

We also had a small catch-and-release tournament (42 boats) on a small lake in Canada just over the Manitoba border on Saturday. Bass season is only open in Ontario on a catch and release basis right now while the fish are still spawning, so there is no holding fish in the livewell and no weigh-in tournaments until July. Anyway, my buddy Dave and I won that 42 boat tournament, so we're off to a pretty good start this season. The same 4-inch Senkos wacky-rigged with nail weights and drop-shotted were very effective techniques for us at that event too.

Take care,

Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson

About the Author. Jeff Gustafson ("Gussy" as he's known) lives on the shoreline of Lake of the Woods, Canada. He writes regularly for fishing magazines in Canada and across the Midwest including publications such as Ontario Out of Doors, Esox Angler and Just Fishing. He write weekly fishing columns for Northwestern Ontario newspapers and he's appeared on TV shows including Fishing the Wildside and In-Fisherman Ice Guide TV.