At these depths, logic demands at least a 3/8-ounce jig, right? "I tried 3/8- and 3/4-ounce jigs and caught nothing," Hibdon said. "Then Dad (Guido) started playing around in the back of the boat and proceeded to kick butt with a skirted, 1/8-ounce, green-pumpkin-purple jig." Why green-pumpkin-purple? "Because the craws I found at Cumberland last year were green with bluish-purple highlights. So we dyed purple splotches on the green-pumpkin Baby Guido Bugs we used for trailers. I tried 1/4-ounce jigs and could catch a few, but not near as many as Dad caught behind me. He had noticeably more bites. We pitched these jigs into 15 feet of water and worked them down a series of bluffs and ledges. Smallmouths were positioned near the lips of the ledges. I think they were following it down from one ledge to the next and, if it dropped too fast, they wouldn't follow. It took forever to work a 1/8-ounce jig down those bluffs. Most of our time was spent feeding line. I would never have the patience to even consider it if Dad hadn't been kicking my butt back there."
For Guido, the switch to a 1/8-ounce jig stems back to early lessons from the Twilight Zone of smallmouth logic. "We fished with Billy Westmorland a lot," Dion says. Westmorland, author of Them Ol' Brown Fish, landed more 10-pound smallmouths than the rest of us combined. "Billy would give me handmade hair jigs in the 1/16- to 1/8-ounce range that take forever to reach bottom. He was always convinced it would take something really subtle when they're not biting -- which is about 80 percent of the time. And Billy often caught fish when we couldn't. Since then, I catch a lot of bass on Lake Erie when guys are dragging those heavier jigs. And I generally catch bigger fish than most, in a crowd of boats over 20- to 35-foot flats when I'm using 1/8-ounce jigs. When they're not really feeding, I go to light stuff."
What does all this tell us? Smallmouths are more vulnerable to being triggered than some fish. Action, aggressive colors, speed, and change of direction can trigger strikes when the same baits fished differently remain ignored. And, while it seems trout are vulnerable to realism while smallmouths are more vulnerable to surrealism, smallmouths sometimes act a lot like trout -- refusing everything but the most natural representations of what they're actually feeding on. But "trigger" is the definitive word. It's possible to trigger some inactive smallmouths, while triggering inactive trout always seems more difficult. Finding the right trigger is more often the key to successful smallmouth angling than matching the hatch.
Playing with drop speed to find the right trigger is sometimes necessary on a daily basis. "Sometimes we use hair jigs," Hibdon adds. "Hair falls differently than silicone, plastic, or rubber. Even a smallmouth is kind of an ambush predator, darting out to surprise prey. But the mere appearance of a bait in their strike zone is no guarantee of a bite. Some days it has to look right, fall right, and act right."
THE 'S' DIMENSION
"When smallmouths are bitin' they're the most exiting fish in the world," says Hibdon. " When they're not, they're the most frustrating fish in the world."
