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f there’s one thing Brad Smith doesn’t like about participating in tournaments, it’s the mad rush to get to the best spots first. Boats blast off from the ramp at the starting gun and race across stump-littered flats and around points in a frantic quest to be Number One. Getting there first can make or break some club anglers’ day, but not Smith. The Fort Smith, Arkansas angler is content to pull into a hole and start fishing, no matter how many other boats have beat him there.

“We usually schedule our tournaments a month in advance by taking a club vote on where we want to go the following month. Naturally, we all want to go where the fishing is going to be hot at the time, and that means everyone else is going to be on that water, as well,” he says.

That hasn’t stopped the 28-year old member of Arkansas.

The best thing to do is to ask, suggests Smith. On the other hand, if you were there first, don’t be a bully. Remember, a few points, even a small paycheck isn’t worth earning a reputation as a jerk. Treat others as you would like them to treat you.

Although Smith has a few favorite baits and techniques, what he uses is far less important than how and where he uses them. He recalls a club tournament on the often-crowded Arkansas River where he focused on inactive fish while the rest of the crowd tried to share the active bass in the same small area. Smith was methodically working a five-inch Yum Shakin’ worm on a split shot rig and catching one nice bass after another. He won that event with a 17-pound limit; the next angler weighed in less than half that. Smith credits that victory to his willingness to focus on something different, a critical ingredient to the community hole equation.

The spot he and at least a half-dozen other boats shared consisted of about five real good holes that were no bigger than a living room, all in the tailrace of a dam. Every tournament at that time of the year was decided in that spot, and the winners were often the ones who got to those holes first. But Smith, who pulled in behind the pack a few minutes later during that tournament, went to work probing non-descript areas with that finesse worm and immediately started catching fish.

“They were targeting the actively-feeding fish in current breaks behind obvious cover; I was looking for the ones that weren’t in the mood to chase a bait and that weren’t in obvious spots,” he recalls.

He does agree that finesse baits can serve as excellent lures for crowded waters, but he’s seen tournaments where the majority of the crowd was fishing some sort of finesse bait.

“You have to do something different. For instance, if everyone is throwing a spinnerbait down a bank that I was going to fish, I might throw something like a Bomber Little Wee R crankbait. Both baits draw a reaction strike, but the small crankbait is completely different than a spinnerbait,” he says.

Gene Gilliland, a member of North Oklahoma City Bassmasters, agrees and says he doesn’t scale down nearly as much as he simply uses a different lure than the rest of the pack. Like Smith, Gilliland just tries to give the fish a different look, a different action or something else they may not be used to seeing.

“If the water is up in the bushes and everyone starts flipping a jig, I might go to a tube or lizard, anything that the fish aren’t used to seeing all the time,” he says.

Both anglers will often sit back and watch their fellow competitors for a minute to determine not just what they are using, but how they are using it. Those popular baits like jigs and spinnerbaits will catch bass, even if the fish have seen a dozen in the last hour. The trick, adds Smith, is to change something, whether the retrieve, color, size or all three. There’s no telling why a bass will ignore a half-ounce spinnerbait and then pounce on a quarter-ounce version, but it happens time and time again.

Smith quit throwing smoke tubes with red flakes after they became so popular, his catch rates declined. Instead of giving up on smoke tubes completely, Smith simply changed to smoke/purple flake tubes and immediately resumed catching bass that other anglers weren’t. He’ll do the same thing with plastic worms, using less popular colors and sizes. Hands down, six and seven-inch worms are the most popular lengths in the country. Every bass angler has a pile of them in his boat. And almost as many have four and five-inch finesse worms. But how many have a selection of 10-inch worms?

He also searches for subtle variations in the bottom and small pieces of cover that tend to get overlooked by all but the most diligent anglers. For instance, visible stumps and lay-downs draw the attention of every passing boater who will no doubt flip a jig or pull a crankbait or spinnerbait past the cover. Smith will stop for a look, as well, but he doesn’t pay any attention to the visible cover.

“If I see a stump on the shore, I’m going to either use my electronics or a lure to try to find stumps that aren’t visible above the water. A stump or a rock on the bank is a good sign that there are stumps or rocks off the shore a little ways, and that off-shore cover is where I’ll focus my efforts because few others do,” he says.

Gilliland, a biologist with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, has the added experience of his job to help understand fish behavior. He has spent years on the water catching bass with the help of electricity and a long-handled net in order to learn more about them.

One thing that really sticks with me from my experience as a biologist is that bass can bunch up for no obvious reason. We’ll run down a section of shoreline with our shocking boats for a hundred yards without seeing the first bass and the all the sudden, boom, we turn up several in one small area. That happens time and time again. Bass aren’t really schooling fish, but when there are certain features present that fit their needs, any number of fish will be attracted to that area,” he says. “There are plenty of instances when we’ll go past three seemingly identical lay-downs and then we’ll come to a fourth and turn up a half-dozen bass.”

With that knowledge, Gilliland will fish an area thoroughly if he catches a bass in a crowded area. While most anglers tend to keep moving after they caught a single fish, Gilliland has found through his job that there’s a good chance several more will be in the area. When the competition is fierce, it can pay dividends to stay put and milk the hole for all it’s worth. However, instead of continuing to pound a single piece of cover with the same lure, he suggests switching to something completely different.

“If I catch one on a spinnerbait, but I don’t catch any more after numerous casts, I might go to a jig or a worm and work the same area again, but I’m not going to move until I’m confident I’ve tried everything I could to catch any other fish that might be there,” he says.

On the other hand, adds Gilliland, sometimes it takes repeated casts with the same bait to the same spot, a trick that the top pros stress when they offer advice. He knows of several fisheries biologists who have donned SCUBA gear to watch bass behavior in relation to fishing pressure. Those divers have watched largemouths ignore a lure for five or six casts, only to pounce on it the next cast. There’s no explanation, but it’s a good example for the need to be persistent.

Of course, when you’ve got a dozen other boats breathing down your neck, you may not have a choice. Stay put, do something a little different and have faith in your skills. Above all, be kind to your bass fishing neighbors. Why do you think they call it a community hole? BCD  

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