Central Pennsylvania Fishing

The weather the past couple of weeks has been changing hourly, daily, and weekly. It been a real mixed bag and the smallmouth bass bite has been running hot and cold. I’ve been hitting the water a minimum of four times a week over the past two months and have found some strategies to adjust and keep the bite going even through the tough times.

The top water bite this summer has been amazing! I’ve been racking up the numbers of smallmouth on a variety of top water baits. That being said, in the past couple of weeks we’ve been thrown a curve. The changing weather conditions have been effecting the smallmouth bite significantly. We’ve seen rain, raising stained water, and cold front conditions broken up by a couple days of sun and warmer conditions.

Believe it or not, this is why I love fishing! I see changing conditions as a challenge and a chance to learn. I’ve found kind of a “rhythm” to the bite over the past couple of weeks that’s helped me adjust and keep catching nice smallmouth. As a matter of fact, a few of my biggest smallmouth have come during cold water, cold front conditions.

I’m certain other patterns and strategies have been working during the past couple of weeks. I’m just throwing this out there as a starting point for some of you guys who have been struggling to put some smallmouth in the boat over the past couple of weeks.

Last week: Sunny, warm air temps, and warm water temps

I’m finding this summer the top water bait has been exceptional and even outperforms other baits. I’m not a top water guy but I’m telling you the bite is on this year! I’ve been working meadow mice, pop-r’s, and tiny torpedoes with great success. The surprising thing is that these baits are producing smallmouth throughout the day, not just in the morning or evening.

Last week: mixed bag cold front conditions, rainy, some sun, colder air temps, cold and murky water

Well, when I faced these conditions last week the top water bite was almost non existent. I had to change things up. I had some success with soft stickbaits but was not impressed with my numbers. I tossed a lot of baits during the couple or so days of the cold front but had no luck establishing something that really worked. I was tossing a 4 inch texposed rigged Yum Dinger but was getting nothing at all. On a whim, I took the bait off my hook and whacky rigged it. Well, to make a long story short, I started catching fish. Good fish! In two or so days of the cold front, I landed three 18″ smallmouth and a good number of 15″ plus fish from a small creek in Central PA.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been flip flopping between top waters during warm stable weather and wacky rigged small plastics during cold/rainy weather and have been doing very well. Surprisingly, most of my better fish are coming during the colder “tougher” days.

I’m heading out tomorrow morning for the Juniata River. I’m confident that I’ll be nailing some smallies on my wacky rigged Yum Dinger!

Feel free to add a comment if you’ve found a pattern that’s been working or want to comment on my pattern.

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