How can we catch the smallmouth/striped bass in our lake?
We have a new 9 acre lake that we stocked just last spring with minnows, georgia giants, perch, small mouth, hybrid striped bass, and koi. We're adding catfish and some other fish this year, but we have yet to catch anything but georgia giants or perch.
Do you have any tips on getting the smallmouth or striped to bite instead of the others? We live in Indiana and it's a pretty open lake that we put some "habitat" in like wrapped field tile and old evergreen trees.
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You never mentioned what kind of baits you are using (from your description of what you are catching, I would assume worms or crickets).
Small mouth Bass primarily eat live creatures. Most places where I fish for them, we use crawdad imitating baits. We fish rivers that are primarily rocky and they feed heavily on crawdads. Smallmouth will also hit things that imitate other smaller fish.
Hybrids in my experience are typically caught on spoons, jigs, anything that will imitate prey fish.
If you want to use live bait, (who doesn't, I love it), I would use live minnows.
You just have to remember that bass eat other aquatic creatures.
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Well, I'm not a good bass fisherman, so I can't say much, except that the only times I've caught smallmouth was in rocky ledges of the lakes using nightcrawlers on the bottom. Maybe add some boulders/large rocks in certain parts of the lake and perhaps the bass will congregate in those areas.
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