Larry Nixon talks about finding smallmouths during a recent interview with FLW Outdoors.

After winning on Lake St. Clair, Larry discussed some of the things that he thought about while trying to find smallmouth bass that could put him over the top in the standings.

Larry Nixon On Finding Smallmouths

Q: Larry, how did you get so good at smallmouth bass fishing?

— Thomas Suk (Minnetonka, MN)

A: Well I grew up fishing the rivers in Arkansas and we had a lot of smallmouth here. I loved to fish for them – they’re so acrobatic. I don’t do very well on Champlain simply because I love fishing for smallmouths. I know what a smallmouth does all day long. I know their habits and their intricacies. I’m also a fan of spinning tackle, especially since my shoulder has been bothering me. And smallmouth fishing matches up very well with that.

Q: Larry, were you fishing isolated structure or open areas with some scattered weed cover during the Detroit River tourney?

— Ken (Gaines, MI)

A: This time I was actually fishing open, flat water. The area that turned out to be so good, there were little spots inside the sand grass that had good, clean bottoms. The smallmouths tend to like those types of areas. This particular tournament has exactly zero structure. The spot I found I staggered across it actually. You have to just go out there and let the wind blow you and drag, drag, drag until you find them. Now, next year they might be 1/2 mile away from where they were this year but they’ll be (holding) to relatively the same type of bottom. There was absolutely nothing on your depth finder to tell you that fish would actually be there so you really had to look for them. Source

Larry says his go-to bait was a Gulp Jerk Shad and that he needs to use finesse tactics with smalllmouth bass more than largemouths.

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