Top Gun Smallmouths: Experts Talk River Patterns

By Matt Straw

From river to river across the country, smallmouths evolved in differing environmental conditions. Some rivers are perpetually cloudy, others run clear until waters rise. Rivers in hilly country, fast and powerful, are countered by those that run deep and slow through flatlands. Big-river smallmouths may develop more aggressive attitudes than their spooky cousins in small streams.

Smallmouths can adapt and thrive in all kinds of moving water—from the raging currents of the Niagara to the slow, almost nonexistent flow in Wisconsin’s Sheboygan River, and in every current velocity between. Substrates in smallmouth rivers and streams can range from entirely rocky to almost completely soft. River smallmouths persist from the frozen extremes of Canada to the much milder climate of Arizona.

Yet smallmouths are smallmouths wherever they swim. Climate, substrates, water color, flow rates, the size of the river, and other environmental factors, along with varying levels of fishing pressure should, logically, combine to create behavioral differences from one stream to the next. In at least one case, it’s true: Smallmouths living in rivers flowing through highly populated urban areas may develop different attitudes than those living in wilderness streams, far from the maddening crowd. But, for the most part, river guides from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific seem to practice similar tactical approaches in July...

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