SOUTHERN-FRIED
BEDDING BRONZE
Where to look when
Southern smallmouths
head to spawn
By Sean Ostruszka
ny time a tournament is a spawning
beatdown, it’s bound to get anglers’
attention. Well, the 2019 FLW Tour
event on Cherokee Lake certainly got the
sport’s attention, and perhaps in a way like
no tournament before.
Sure, the weather conditions lined up
perfectly, pushing waves of egg-laden bass
to the bank, and the pros commenced a
full-on blitzkrieg assault. At times, anglers
were catching bass off beds like they were
bluegills.
There’s one catch that made this event
unlike any before it, though: The pros weren’t
sight-fishing largemouths, as one might
expect on a Southern reservoir. They were
focused solely on spawning smallmouths.
That’s not to say spawning smallmouths
haven’t come into play on Southern reser-
voirs before. Many tournaments in the
Ozarks, Tennessee and Kentucky have
seen anglers contend in tournaments by
either focusing on, or at least supplement-
ing, their bags with bedding brown fish. But
those anglers were almost always in the
minority. The sport simply hadn’t seen
spawning smallmouths come into play on a
Southern reservoir on such a scale as this
before. On Northern fisheries, sure. But not
in the South.
Yet, as Cherokee exposed, many
Southern reservoirs have some healthy
smallmouth populations, and when condi-
tions line up for the spawn, bronze bass
can be tournament winners. And even if
you’re not fishing tournaments …
“When the smallmouth go on beds and
you can find them, it can get really, really
fun,” says MLF Bass Pro Tour pro Ott DeFoe.
The finding them part is the catch. So,
here’s where to look.
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2020 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | FLWFISHING.COM
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