Give MOTEL fishing a try on Smith Lake this Spring
By Brian Morris 

WHEN

My favorite time of the year for catching boatloads of spotted bass and stripe on Smith Lake is almost here. I finally get to put down the spinning rod for a little while and pick up some rods with a little more testosterone.  What I am looking so forward to is the morning top water bite that usually starts as early as Mid March and runs through as late as the end of June. May mornings usually seem to be the peak of the action. You won’t be targeting small fish either. I’m not saying that you won’t catch some dinks but for the most part the spots will be over 15" and the stripe will average 12 to 15 lbs with behemoths up to 40 lbs possible. 

Personally I like to get out and be on the water sitting on my first spot before the sun comes up. The action will usually last for about 2 to 3 hours. The peak of the action usually seems to be from daybreak to about 7:30 a.m. but can last up until about 8:30 a.m. If you pick a good overcast morning, the fishing may remain productive all day. You always know it’s time to pack up and go home when you see the first jet ski of the morning on the water. It also seems the closer we get to Summer the shorter the length of time when the action is really good. Early in the year the top water bite can be better in the late afternoon than in the morning. I’ll try and talk the wife into letting me do both morning and afternoon but if I can only do one or the other I’m going in the morning.

WHERE

Many anglers usually gravitate toward the backs of creeks and fish close to the banks during this time of year - not me! Although the Largemouth are improving dramatically on Smith and I’ve seen some nice sacks of those heads caught shallow during this time of year, under most circumstances I’m headed to MOTEL fish! MOTEL fishing is just the term I use to describe this type of fishing in the Middle Of The Lake. I don’t mean the mid section of the lake, I mean open water. Don’t be surprised if you find your boat in water that is well over 100 feet deep.

Can you just take your boat out in the middle of the lake and just start fishing? Actually you probably can, but I’d probably do a little more homework before I did that. One of the things I look for is the mouth of major creeks where three or more arms of the lake converge. Any main lake point can also be a hot spot. Some points can be consistently productive while others may be hit or miss. Humps can be excellent or worthless. For me it is usually one extreme or the other as far as humps are concerned. Sometimes just a slight bend from the main lake channel will hold fish. You also don’t want to overlook an area of the lake where there is a lot of submerged standing timber. I believe spots and stripe hunker down during the day in the submerged timber and go on a feeding binge in the early morning hours. I take several days this time of the year and force myself to do nothing but fish areas that I have never fished before. I have found a couple of honey holes by doing this but I still have no idea why they hold fish. There is no cover, structure, or anything else that I could put my finger on to tell me why this place would hold fish, but year after year, I can usually pull a few fish off of these same spots.

HOW

The best tool you have in your boat to help you locate these fish are your eyes. Much of the time, but not all of the time, the fish give themselves away by busting shad. When you are out fishing and you see a disturbance on the water it is probably going to be one of three things. It is either a bass busting baitfish, stripe busting baitfish, or the dreaded carp wallowing on top of the water. With a little experience you should be able to tell the difference among all three, or at least be able to tell the difference between a fish busting bait fish and a carp. A spot will usually make smaller disturbances on top of the water many times in rapid succession as it chases bait fish, a stripe has a distinct sucking or popping noise that is made and will also sometimes make huge swirls as it tries to corral its prey. Many times you will see shad jumping and fleeing for their life when being pursued by a bass or stripe. A carp in contrast will make a large splash with its tail or jump completely out of the water. If you see all or part of a brown, yellow, or orange fish come out of the water you can be pretty sure it’s a carp, However, if a fish busts within casting distance and you aren’t sure what it is, by all means make a cast to it!

Keep in mind when your riding around the lake going to your next hole, you can’t see a whole lot of surfacing fish while traveling 70 mph sitting down in your bass boat. When I first started fishing Smith, I would just casually cruise down the lake looking for any surface activity on the way to my next spot. Sometimes I would just ride and look, driving while standing in my fish and ski. This time of year you can stumble across the mother load just by keeping your eyes open.

EQUIPMENT & TACKLE

Leave the sissy stick (spinning rod) at home and pick up a bait caster. Personally I like a 6' medium heavy rod for throwing spooks and sammys for bass, but I go up to 7’ rod with extra line capacity on the reel when casting for stripe with a red fin. On my bass set up I usually go with 15lb P-Line Copolymer line and I will bump up to 20 lb test of the same for my stripe rod. The most important thing for me is to have a rod and a reel that I can cast a country mile. Due to the weight and size of most of the lures I use, long casts are usually easy to make. When I’m searching for fish and I don’t see any fish surfacing but I feel fish are in the area, I like to “blind cast” using a BIG noisy salt-water Super Spook. Many times I will see a fish bust the surface while I’m in the middle of blind casting. I will drop the spook rod and pick up a rod tied with a Sammy if I feel the fish is a bass or pick up the Red Fin if I feel the fish is a stripe.

TIPS & TRICKS

Many times these fish will bust the surface only once and will be gone in a flash. Don’t be scared to cast directly on top of the blow up you just witnessed. These fish are very aggressive and will strike at almost any movement, but you better have your spook right on top of them within a split second or they will be gone only to resurface just out of casting distance.

The common reaction when your fishing partner hooks up with a fish is to “Get the Net” and your partner will probably want you to do this if he hasn’t told you to already. Instead of getting the net, pick up your rod and cast it directly over your partners hooked fish. There is a very good chance you can double up with this opportunity. I can’t tell you how many times I have pulled a 4 lb spot to the boat and have 3 or more spots that same size follow him just waiting to pounce on the bait hanging out of their buddy’s mouth. As a matter of fact, on more than one occasion I have had a fish on the line get unhooked only to have another fish take my plug before it ever made it to the surface

Some days you can fish the whole morning in just one creek mouth. Other days you may have to jump from point to point. Time is very valuable in the morning and you don’t want to waste a lot of time in an unproductive area. If the fish are there you will usually know in just a few casts. Personally I would not spend any more than 10 minutes on any one area if I see no signs of activity.

From time to time the fish do get picky, especially if the area you are fishing has been over fished. Sometimes you can over come this by down sizing. Try a Pop R, fluke, small sassy shad, small spook, or jerk bait. If you still can’t get them to bite your offerings you might as well find a new hole.

To all you bass fishermen out there, don’t let the stripe scare you away from fishing in an area. I have seen first hand spots and stripe together busting the same school of shad. If there is baitfish present there is a good chance both spots and stripe will be working the same area. Many people don’t believe this story but while fishing one April morning I hooked up with a small stripe on a red fin that would weigh roughly 7 lbs. While bringing the stripe to the side of the boat, a gutsy spot weighing about 3 lbs tries to snatch the red fin out of the stripe’s mouth. A few moments later I have both fish in the net. There has always been a lot of controversy about the bass fishermen thinking that the stripe are hurting the bass population. According to the state biologists the stripe have little or no impact on the bass population and I would personally have to agree with them.

Last but not least - STAY AWAY FROM THE BANK. If you are not at least the distance of 2 long casts from the bank you are probably not over productive water, hence the phrase MOTEL fishing.