Great Smallmouth Fishing in Glacial Lakes

Dennis Kassube doesn't hunt upland birds or waterfowl, yet he really looks forward to the start of hunting seasons.

"That's because when they open, my favorite lakes aren't full of boats," he explained.

For the better part of a decade, Dennis and I have met at Roy Lake for what has become a fall ritual, fishing big smallmouth bass in Roy and surrounding lakes at a time of the year when a typical afternoon will produce 20 or more fish for us.

We keep none. I've never put a smallmouth in the livewell and neither has Dennis, but we dearly enjoy fishing these great battlers.

Though both of us prefer to catch our fish on artificial lures, we don't use them in October, mostly because they don't seem to work very well. That could change this fall when we'll be trying to catch smallmouth on some of the Berkely jerk baits treated with the Gulp formula.

Otherwise, we'll catch them on live bait.

"Premium bait," Kassube corrects me.

And that means big creek chubs that he catches in small streams between his home on the shores of Big Stone Lake and Roy Lake. Those creek chubs outproduce any bait either of us have ever used.

Sure, sucker chubs will catch an occasional smallmouth, and so will larger suckers, but there's something about using wild chubs that really appeals to the smallmouth bass.

It's important to fish them properly. That means using a Lindy Rig with a short snell.

The rigs come pre-tied with 30-inch snells, which we think are much too long for smallmouth. We reason the chubs are active swimmers and our job is to make it easier for the smallmouth to catch them. Thus, we use snells of about 12-to 18-inches with a big No. 1 or 2 Kahle style hook.

We also use Lindy No Snag sinkers - fairly heavy ones of at least three-eighths of an ounce - so we can fish these rigs as vertically as possible.

That's important because we do our fishing around sunken rock piles surrounded by deeper water, a natural place for smallmouth bass to congregate when the first frost hits, which usually occurs in October.

On a good afternoon, we'll land about 20 fish, most better than 3 pounds. We'll usually catch a couple that go over the 5-pound mark, which is a lunker anywhere in America.

I've fished some of the best smallmouth waters in the nation, including Chaquemegon Bay on Lake Superior at Ashland, Wis., the upper Mississippi River in Minnesota, Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee and others.

South Dakota's glacial lakes compare with any of them. My favorite state lakes include Roy, which probably offers the largest fish, followed closely by Clear, Pickerel and Enemy Swim Lakes.

The bait and presentation we use will also work on walleyes, so we're never surprised when we hook a walleye, and when we do, it's usually a big one like the 10-pounder I caught on a dull, gray afternoon several years ago on Roy. However, if I want a big walleye, one even larger than that, I'd fish Enemy Swim. Not as many walleyes there, but there are some king-size fish.

I haven't figured out how to use the same system on Lakes Sharpe or Oahe on the Missouri River, mostly because there aren't many sunken rock piles, but those two lakes, especially Sharpe, are coming on strong as great smallmouth fisheries.

I honestly foresee the day when many anglers will travel to South Dakota to fish exclusively for smallmouth. Equally important, they'll release what they catch.

Tony Dean, an outdoors enthusiast, writes a column every week for the Argus Leader. Reach him at tonydeanoutdoors@pie.midco.net.

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