What you need to know for smallies.

[ROBZILLA]

This is a heads up on targeting those hard to catch Smallmouths.

Smallmouths, unlike their largemouth relatives, tend to be inactive at night, according to one study completed on several Ontario lakes. Shortly after sunset, smallmouths were found to move to deeper water and “rest on the bottom,� where they were approached by divers. During the day, however, smallmouths were difficult to get close to underwater. Scientists say that bass feed opportunistically, as the opportunity resents itself during the daylight hours. Which depths do smallmouth bass prefer? According to many studies, bass seem to adapt well to great variations in water depth. The fish were repeatedly observed sunning themselves in quiet, shallow water, but were also radio-tracked as deep as 80 feet in the same or similar water bodies. The reason for such diversity is usually related to forage-base availability. For instance, bass taken out of 55 to 80 foot depths from Cayuga lake in New York had alewives in their stomachs, while most shallow water fish had a higher proportion of crayfish present. Smallmouths are not classified as true schooling fish, but they do aggregate Schools have been observed in deep water along limestone ridges and other rock bluffs in early September, when surface temperature began to drop. Tag returns from lakes Michigan, Erie, Ontario and Huron indicate very little smallmouth migration, especially when compared with similar studies done on other species.