Northern Smallmouth

THE OLD CLICHÉ that a bass is a bass is a bass may be true most of the time, but not when it comes to smallmouth.

Smallmouth waters in Michigan, Wisconsin, New York and Canada are seeing record numbers of nonresident anglers making the trek north in search of the fabulous smallmouth action they read about in Bassmaster or see on TV.

However, as visiting anglers are discovering, those Yankee brown fish are a different breed of cat.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re coming from Alabama, Tennessee, southern Indiana or Ohio, Northern smallmouth and their habitats are distinctively different.

In addition, glacial-lake fish often prefer dissimilar styles of lures and are built like footballs compared to the sleeker Southern smallies.

“Our [Northern] fish act entirely differently than what we encounter when we fish Southern lakes,”