Fall Susquehanna Smallmouth Fishing
Maybe it’s because I don’t hunt, but I don’t understand why many anglers put away their fishing rods and miss the amazing fall Susquehanna smallmouth fishing. This can be the most amazing time of year to hit the river and catch some great sized bronzebacks.
Fall Susquehanna smalllmouth fishing
Summertime on the Susquehanna is great because you have so many hours of daylight, you can get comfy in your shorts and sandals, hop out of the boat and wade in the water, making launching the boat a piece of cake. The bass are plentiful but on the Susky, the larger bass are harder to catch.
Check out this article by Ken Maurer for your best approach. Ken is from the Sunbury area and is a smallmouth bass expert and fishing guide on the Susky.
Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits will get some aggressive strikes in the fall, especially if the water is a little off-color, which it will be at some point.
Sometimes you have to play around with details like blade and skirt color, but when you get the combination right, fall smallies will try to tear your spinnerbait rod out of your hands.
A good starting point with spinnerbaits is silver and gold blades with a white skirt. Some days they may want silver blades more than gold or visa versa. The white skirt is universal, but with cloudier water they may want some chartreuse in it. If the water is clear, they may want a smoke or shad-colored skirt.
One of my favorite ways to fish after the water starts to cool is with jerkbaits. You can “jerk” any minnow-shaped plug, but the one that work best are suspending, minnow baits like x-raps, lucky crafts, jackals and husky jerks. I like to use a fairly stiff rod and give the lure a couple of hard jerks, then let it drift motionless.
The fun of this is how hard a smallie will hit it, usually on the drift. Color and speed usually play into having a successful day with jerkbaits. Try different colors, sizes and retrieve speeds until you zone in on them. Source
If you get out for some fall Susquehanna smallmouth fishing, let us know in the comments section below how you do and feel free to upload a few pictures of the smallies you get in the boat.
Until next time, tight lines!!