# How to river Fish for Bass????



## perchin (Jul 6, 2010)

I am fairly new to Bass Fishing, and have not caught them anywhere but lakes. I am told that there are many good spots around my area for Smallies out of the rivers. I have only ever salmon, trout, and catfished out of the river before though.

My question is how do you rig to do this???? 

Do you just cast down current, then reel in up current???

Any tips, and advice would be greatly welcomed.


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## Truckmechanic (Jul 6, 2010)

Is it a swift river with shallow water? Or is it a fairly calm river with deeper water? I fish the river here a lot but it is fairly calm and deep. Give me some more details and I may be able to help if it is like my river here. We have a fairly medium sized one. It is use to transport coal by barges and tug boats.


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## russ010 (Jul 6, 2010)

throw into the current and bring it back to you... so basically you are reeling with the direction of the water.

most bass I catch in rivers swim against the current - so I bring the bait infront of their faces


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## perchin (Jul 6, 2010)

Truckmechanic said:


> Is it a swift river with shallow water? Or is it a fairly calm river with deeper water? I fish the river here a lot but it is fairly calm and deep. Give me some more details and I may be able to help if it is like my river here. We have a fairly medium sized one. It is use to transport coal by barges and tug boats.



I've got a couple different scenario's..... one spot is only about 3 feet deep and has a swift current. The other spot is about 5 to 6 feet deep and a little bit calmer. The other spots, I have not checked out yet.



russ010 said:


> throw into the current and bring it back to you... so basically you are reeling with the direction of the water.
> 
> most bass I catch in rivers swim against the current - so I bring the bait infront of their faces



Thanks russ010...... I'll be trying that this weekend.

any others???


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## FishinsMyLife (Jul 6, 2010)

I'd say start out with something like a spinnerbait to cover water. Fish all around, casting all different ways. If there are any fish there, you'll get bit. When you do get a hit, remember what your cast was like and replicate that.

That being said, I get a lot, but not all, of my bites fishing upstream and bringing my bait back down to me.


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## breachless (Jul 6, 2010)

We do a lot of mid-summer smallmouth fishing around here on the river. We always look for a pool where the water isn't ripping by too fast and drag just about anything small enough for them to get their mouths around through it. My personal favorite is the old fashioned swirl-tail grub with a small jig-head. You can toss this into the pool, the weight takes it down if the current isn't too bad and you can bounce it off the rocks on the bottom as the current keeps that little swirlie tail moving constantly. Seems to produce a lot of fish for me anyway. If it's moving faster, it doesn't reach bottom, but it doesn't seem to matter much... You just can't fish the pool quite as slowly.

Then again, the guy I fish alongside likes to throw a shallow-running floating rapala and does just as well as I do. I think with river fishing, it's hard to throw the wrong bait: smallies in the rivers are looking for any opportunity to grab potential food that is carried along with the current, and I think they just instinctively grab whatever they can before it floats on by. This is why river fishing can be so much fun! I also know that if you have plastics that look like crayfish, you can do quite well that way too. I think the crayfish are the Smallies primary source of food around here so that always seems to produce.

The one problem I have had though with using the grub/jig, is that I have accidentally snagged BIG 5 foot or longer sturgeon lumbering around on the bottom on more than one occasion, and once those things get spooked, they will rip the rod right out of your hands if you aren't careful (especially if you snag one in the tail!) This is precisely why I prefer to NOT fish with braided line in the river. With 12 lb mono, they just take off and snap your line, but with braid, look out! It will wake you up for sure...


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## Truckmechanic (Jul 7, 2010)

I won't be much help as my river experiance is on deep slow moving water.


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## clumzy_31 (Jul 15, 2010)

Use a crawfish type bait and drag it around sand and rocky areas. That's what I did on the st. Croix my first time there and managed a lot of smallys. But find slack water and cover and fish it like you would do at a lake. Color may just be more affective in rivers as. Most rivers are dark water.


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## breachless (Jul 16, 2010)

I was out last weekend fishing Smallies on the Snake River and did pretty well with a plastic crawdad. Then I switched to a brown chatterbait after a northern shredded my crawdad and got a lot of fish on it. Nice ones too.


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## jkbirocz (Jul 16, 2010)

You can never go wrong with a grub or a tube. Rigged either on a jighead or a t-rigged with as light of a bullet weight you can get away with. I love using spot remover jigheads with craws or other plastics on them. I basically just cast them out and slowly reel them in giving a pop here and there. I cast both up and downstream, if you are getting snagged a lot start with casting downstream. That way if you snag you can usually get it out just by letting out slack line, as long as there is enough current. Dead drifted senkos and flukes can also be killer when the fish are sluggish. 

River fishing is not much different than lake fishing, you just have to do it and get a feel for it. You can pretty much use everything you would use in a lake. Smallies are crazy they will hit huge baits. This time of year you may have low hot water, then generally the fish will stack up in faster moving water that has more dissolved oxygen. If the water is normal or high, look for deeper, slower moving pools with wood or big rocks in or around them. Fish topwater early and late....smallies can give an excellent show. Good Luck


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## basshunter25 (Jul 17, 2010)

I like to pinpoint changes in the river. Breakwalls I throw a jig with a crawdad plastic. Points wether islands or inlets I like to throw spinnerbaits or cranks. Im not real experienced with catching smallies in the river but these techniques worked for me pretty good. I usually just keep cruising till I find a bayou then target the largemouths. If you ever see anyone fishing the river for smallies or the person that told you about it ask them what they do. Most people don't mind sharing info if you approach them right. I love picking peoples brains at launches but normally start out with some small talk like awesome boat, sweet truck,etc. Some info is useless but some is priceless.


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## basshunter25 (Jul 18, 2010)

Ok scratch that throw a chatterbait around logs in the river!! On the way back in from the bayou tonight, probably because of this post, I decided to try and catch a smallie so I grabbed the pole with a chatterbait on and worked it around some trees that were laying down on the banks of the Grand River. Third cast nailed this nice little smallmouth. It was a great ending to a good day fishing.


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## perchin (Aug 17, 2010)

Nice job basshunter25,
I can't believe I missed this earlier. I have not been back out to the river since getting skunked last time...... never been shown the ropes of it, as I'm the only fisherman in our family. Could be too that I only waded and walked the bank..... :evil: caught more thorns, mosquitoes, and a few trips and slips on slippery rocks. :lol:


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