Phil's Fishing Site: Slow Water Hot Spots

“Let’s head to the next good spot - the river is pretty slow here.” Sound familiar? For years I passed right through the long slow sections of the river on my way to the next set of rapids. I was sure you had to fish in rocky, fast water to catch smallmouth bass. As you can guess, my fishing consisted of casting below rapids, walking to the next set of rapids, fishing a little, and then more walking. Quite often, there was more walking than fishing. I caught fish but in the back of my mind I always wondered about the long, slow areas in between. Some of them stretched on for miles. Could they be totally devoid of fish? When I did occasionally catch a fish from a slow moving area, it surprised me.

My thinking changed when I started fishing small creeks. Fish in these creeks couldn’t stay in the rapids as they were only one or two inches deep. So I was forced to fish deep holes and slower stretches. Being able to actually see the fish in these small creeks also helped my confidence. Back at the larger rivers, I started catching fish out of the slower water of the main pools and also at the very back of pools. So now I had several spots to check in each pool besides the rapids. And I wasn’t doing quite so much walking. Long, slow sections that went on for miles with no riffles were still a mystery, though. I would have written them off completely except that I had caught fish from both above and below these areas. I just had a ten or fifteen mile gap of slow water in between. The majority of fish didn’t seem to overwinter in the shallow areas that were above these slow sections. Many of them were dredged ditches that provided little protection from the high cold waters of winter. On other rivers the whole thing was slow and they didn’t look like smallmouth habitat at all, but in the spring the feeder creeks and ditches that led into them would be loaded with smallmouths. All of this seemed to indicate that smallies were either living in or passing through slow water.

Sometimes while I was walking from riffle to riffle, I thought about getting a canoe. Just think of how many riffles I could hit and all the remote spots I could get to in a day! Lucky for me, I didn’t get around to canoeing for a few years. Often while walking through a slow section I would trip over a submerged rock or log. Other times the bottom substrate would change from sand to gravel. More than once I would step into a deep hole and quite literally fall into good fishing. This is called learning to read the water the hard way. Gradually I began to see that these areas were not as empty of fish-holding structure as they had appeared. One of the best things about fishing and walking is that you have to walk out the way you came in. Stepping into a good spot can ruin it for the time being, but you can catch a nice fish out of the same area on the way out. Be sure to make note of shoreline features like a big tree or something so that you can remember the location and avoid falling into the same spot again. Carrying a three by five note card and even drawing a small diagram of the pool will also help. Note cards are good for this because they don’t dissolve in water like regular paper. Just because you step into a spot, don’t assume immediately that you have spooked the fish. One of my biggest fish caught last year was in a situation where I stepped into a deep hole on the Kankakee river. I slowly eased my way out of it, casted the same area, and got a nice eighteen-incher. Another situation where you can use your feet to find the fish is when you get a fish out of an area and you don’t know why after you’ve covered the area thoroughly. Go ahead and wade right in and see if you can figure out that way why he was there. Obviously you need to use caution here as with all river wading. I’ve started using a wading staff. It doesn’t need to be an expensive one; mine consists of a broomstick on a short piece of string attached to my belt.

As you walk your way through slow water sections you will start to realize there are very few areas where the bottom is all the same depth or consistency. The reason for this is current. If you haven’t seen the river in high water flood conditions or when the ice is breaking up you can’t really appreciate the forces involved here. That slow water area can become a torrent in high water, excavating all kinds of changes in the river bottom that smallmouth bass use for resting, feeding, and traveling. Some things to feel for with your feet include changes in bottom content (such as muck to hard clay, sand to gravel or rock, or slab bedrock to broken rubble), changes in depth, and submerged rocks or trees. Some of the most productive spots that are very hard to find except with your feet are those with ledges or shelves These are dangerous to step off of and the wading staff might help you here. Pretty much every outside bend on a river has some sort of ledge or shelf or bottom content change. These features will often run the whole length of the bend, and in walking an area like this you will often be surprised at where the bottom content or depth changes occur. Sometimes it will be within a foot of the outside bank, and sometimes a ledge will extend all the way out into the middle of the river before it drops. The smallmouth bass will travel along these edges as they feed and move up and down the river. Changes in depth and bottom content provide protection from the current and shelter for the food that these fish seek. As you move up or down an outside bend, any additional feature - a rock outcropping, tree, hole, anything different - along the area of change in depth or structure will concentrate fish. If you are familiar with Buck Perry’s Spoonplugging system, Buck would call this a “break on a break line” (For more information on Spoonplugging, call 828-322-2157).

Besides using your feet to find fish in slow water, you can also use your head, especially your eyes. Start with obvious places. Anything different can provide habitat for Mr. Smallmouth. Bridges, rip rap, tree roots, fallen trees, any place water enters the river, and even old appliances are worth checking out. In the high, fast water of spring the river will dig deeper holes around anything that deflects the current. Less obvious things to look for with your eyes include boils or slight ripples on the water’s surface. Boils on the surface occur due to something on the bottom deflecting the current up towards the surface. The object causing the boil is not directly below it; the faster and deeper the water, the further upstream the object causing the boil will be. Casting upstream until your lure makes contact with that object is the best way to fish and understand these areas. When you finally do locate what is causing the boil, take the time to fan cast around it, as fish will position themselves almost anywhere surrounding an underwater structure.

Late summer or fall is a great time to use your eyes to find normally hidden structures. With the water low and warm you can walk easily, see exposed rock at the waterline, and with the clear water of fall many submerged ledges, big rocks, and other underwater features are now visible. Some of my favorite slow areas are hidden rocky lifts that don’t break the surface. The bottom comes up, gets rocky, and drops down again. Only in the lowest of water conditions will a telltale boil appear, giving hint of the good fishing below. Remember to take notes.

One last benefit of fall fishing is the presence of leaves on the water. I used to dread fishing this time of year because of leaves fouling my lures, but now I look forward to it. I have learned that drifting leaves will indicate current even in those areas where my eyes may tell me the water is still. They can be one of the greatest teachers of reading the water. Just put on a heavy, weedless jig to punch through the leaves on the surface. All of a sudden eddies, current cuts, and main channel areas are easily recognized.

Many times, especially in slow water sections, there will be wood everywhere in the water, and this can be overwhelming. Where do you start? Being able to see the changes in the current is essential to knowing where to concentrate your fishing time when “too much of a good thing” syndrome strikes. Leaves will indicate where the main channel lies. The fish may not be right in the main channel, but they won’t be far from it either. My rule of thumb is to focus on the wood near the deepest and fastest water I can find. I would apply this also to any similar situation, such as too many rocks, weeds, or reeds.

If you miss out on fall leaf fishing, try scouting the river just before it freezes solid. I haven’t caught many fish at this time but the scenery is beautiful and the last part to freeze on a river is usually the main channel where the river is deepest and the current is fastest. Observe to see where the main channel nears the bank. These areas hold the potential for the deeper water, ledges, and bottom content changes that are so important in smallmouth bass fishing. Take note of these areas and you can focus on them next summer.

One last spot to focus on is what I call the “base of the bluff bends” (say it three times fast). Most rivers wind their way through a river valley that was probably created by glaciers. Usually there is a bluff on each side with quite a distance, sometimes a mile or more, in between them. As our little river flows, it meanders between these bluffs. While every outside bend has the potential to be good for fishing, when an outside bend strikes up against the base of a bluff I can almost guarantee that there will be nice rock in this area, because the river is cutting into new ground where the glaciers and the river itself have not been before. These base of the bluff bends are sometimes the only rock I can find in slow rivers. If you can get a topographic map of the river that you fish, these are easy areas to locate and you probably can get into an isolated pocket of fish that no one knows about.

All this talk about isolated fish can really get you going. But don’t just run out and start fishing. Besides using your feet and eyes, using your lure to feel bottom changes is yet another way to read the river and locate fish. My primary lures for this are jigs and crankbaits. They have to be heavy enough and swim deep enough to constantly hit bottom. This may mean adjusting the size and weight of your lures and speed of your retrieve, depending on how the river changes. Your goal should be to be able to tell the depth and bottom content by how your lure feels and how long it takes to sink. One way to practice this is to cast out and try to determine the structure of the bottom with your lure, then walk out and check it with your feet. This might seem like a waste of good fishing time, but I know a lot of golfers who “waste” golfing time at driving ranges. Being able to interpret the river bottom structure with your lures will add a whole new dimension to your fishing. Not only will you be learning the bottom of the river, but it will put your lure in contact with more fish. I’m quite certain that for years I had been fishing my lures two or three feet above the fish, especially on ledges and next to wood. If the fish weren’t active or the water was murky these smallies didn’t even know that my lures existed; I wasn’t even in the ballpark. If I had taken the time to make sure my lure was contacting the bottom it would have put my lure in front of more fish and increased my catches.

Not only did I not fish deep enough or close enough to cover, many times I would only make a few half-hearted casts in a slow area, and then move on. I wasn’t thorough enough to find fish or fish holding structure. It takes real discipline to cast to seemingly featureless water when you know there is a nice riffle a hundred yards away. Fan casting - placing your casts three or four feet apart as you move up or down the river, covering one hundred percent of the water - is a great way to learn these slow areas. Don’t attempt to fan cast a one mile section; starting with smaller pools that are quickly covered will build your confidence. Once you’ve experienced some success and become more proficient at reading slow water, you can bite off bigger chunks. A good fishing partner can help speed things along and allow you to try two different lures at once. And last but not least, walking right in the river and realizing that there is a lot of habitat in the slow water because you are tripping over it will convince you to continue your quest.

While fan casting is a great way to locate hidden hot spots in slow areas, one of the best ways to cover known fish holding areas is the parallel cast. I’ve started to see that the path my lure travels through the water is extremely important. If it is at all possible, casting parallel to a ledge, outside bend, reed bed, or any bottom content change will allow your lure to travel for a longer distance along the path where fish are concentrated, resulting in better catches.

Besides jigs and crankbaits in slow water, try some topwater lures, especially buzzbaits. It only takes a few casts to see if the fish are interested, and if they are it can be a great way to cover a lot of water quickly. Seeing the fish hit the surface is exciting, builds confidence, and there is no guesswork as to whether or not you have had a bite. Be sure to throw a jig around any wood or rock that gives up a fish on a topwater lure, as a few of his more timid friends may be lurking below.

As with any new technique or lure, it is best to experiment under good fishing conditions. What exactly these are is open to debate. If you are catching fish out of your usual spots it might be worth taking an hour out to try something new. I personally like to focus on these deeper, slower areas when the water is warm and clear. This usually ensures that the fish are fairly active and willing to travel to catch my lures, so my presentation doesn’t to have to be right on.