All of this talk about low water has me thinking about some of the finesse spin fishing tactics we like to use to up our game in low, clear water conditions. Most folks “downsize” everything in some way, switching to lighter rods, lines, leaders, smaller baits, etc. so that there’s less splash when the bait hits the water and less commotion when the bait is retrieved through the water column. We try to avoid having to use a whole new set of rods and line set-ups, so we just modify what we have to fit our needs, and it’s just a matter of changing leaders.
For all of smallmouth floats, we use Light Action 6′ 9″ Temple Fork Outfitters Intracoastal Spinning rods paired with a Diawa Ballistic MQ 1500 with 10 pound braid. Our default leader system is about a 2′ shot of 12 pound Seagar Red Label Flourocarbon leader connected to the braid with a uni to uni knot. When conditions get low and clear (mostly flows of less than 300 cfs), we simply replace the 12 pound flouro leader with a 9′ shot of 10 or even 8 pound flouro. When I switch from 12 to 10 or 8, I lose my usual “Canoe Man’s Loop Knot” and tie on a regular old uni knot. I feel like the regular non-loop knot holds better on the hookset. With 10 and especially 8 pound leader, the angler is caught in a sticky situation on the bite. You must set the hook hard enough to get a good hookset, especially on a large fish (they still are bass), but not so hard that you break the fish off. It’s really easy to do on 8 pound flouro.
So under these conditions on the conventional gear side of the game, we are constantly balancing going light without going so light that we can’t set the hook or land a large fish that runs all over the river and takes you into structure such as log jams and bounders. This setup paired with our favorite finesse soft plastic from Zman or Zoom on a light or even unweighted terminal tackle rig is what we have found to be the best balance so far.
I’ll do a separate post on terminal tackle rigs in the future. We definitely have our preferences.
