Pro Lesson
Balog on Great Lakes Smallies

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Joe Balog has adapted along with the Great Lakes smallies, and has whacked them in BASS and other events.

Balog fishes the Bassmaster Opens and Stren Series events and specializes in Great Lakes smallmouth fishing. He says "10 years ago, you could just throw out a tube, drift and cover expansive area just dragging the bait, and catch tons of bass," he said. "But gone are 150 fish days. Now, a 20-fish day is a good day.

"It kind of amuses me that you still see a lot about dragging tubes on Lake Erie. For 10 years now the guys who do well in tournaments haven't done that. If you're dragging a tube in a tournament, you're hurting."

Grazing on Gobies

In the past, the lake was murkier and there were more roaming baitfish. The bass followed the bait, and moved a lot. "We have less open-water baitfish than we used to have," Balog noted. "The pollutants have been cleaned up, and the (non-native) zebra mussels have filtered out a lot of nutrients."

That means there is less plankton for fish like shad or alewives to eat, and their populations have declined. But of course another invasive species, the round goby, has become strongly established.

"Now the smallmouths eat almost exclusively gobies," Balog said. "Gobies are object-oriented and live in a pile. They have no swim bladder so they stay on the bottom. All these big, fat, juicy, spineless gobies are down there living where smallies like to live anyway – on the western end of Lake Erie especially.

"The smallmouths go from prime spot to prime spot, grazing on gobies."

Drop, Not Drag

The reduced catch rate for smallmouths isn't all bad news, however. "Even though we're catching less fish, the ones left are bigger," Balog said. "On that good 20-fish day, there'll be several 3- and 4-pounders, and a few are 5-pounders.

"You're fishing for more-educated fish," he noted. "These are big, isolated, deep fish. A 5-pounder is maybe 9 to 16 years old, and has seen a lot of (lure) presentations. The best way to catch them is to precisely drop a dropshot bait on key isolated structure in deep water.

"I use two GPS units, front and back, to get exactly on a spot. I have a long-shaft 36-volt, 101-pound-thrust trolling motor, and I stand there and keep the bilge pumps on when the waves break over the bow. You have to have a big, stable, dry boat, and fish on particular spots. Exact presentation to isolated structure is a must."

The key spots are rockpiles, reefs, shipwrecks and the like, and it takes time to find them. "It's boring to practice for a tournament with me," he said. "I may spend only an hour of a 12-hour day actually fishing. The rest of the time I'm driving and watching my graphs. It's always good to see some bass on the sonar when I make my initial drive-over in familiar spots, but in new places I definitely want to see them first."

After he decides on a spot, which is frequently 30 to 35 feet deep, he uses a dropshot rig to mine the bass. Putting the lure on their noses is generally all that's required to get a bite, but sometimes that's a considerable trick on big water like that.

"Wind and currents make it tough," he said. "Wind not only moves your boat around, but it generates currents that are a factor even at 35 feet.

"They bite better when 5- to 6-footers are rolling, since that's turbulent all the way down the water column, and current always positions them on structure better and they feed better.

"These aren't tremendous currents, though sometimes they're enough that we can drop the dropshot down and it'll never hit the bottom," he noted. "It gets blown off to the side.

'They bite better when 5- to 6-footers are rolling....'

Hitting Them on the Nose

"There's sweet spots on each isolated rockpile or shipwreck or whatever," Balog said. "Presentation here is more getting the bait on the right spot rather than how to work the bait or putting action on the bait. With a spot the size of a kitchen table, just hitting it is enough.

"In rough water you can't hold (the bait) still, so you don't need to try to move it – just get it there. In calm conditions, I like to let it slowly flutter down on a semi-slack line, let it sit, then shake the slack and that'll make it quiver. I'll drop it, shake it six to eight times, then reel up and drop it again.

"Here we make a lot of drops," he noted. "I hardly ever move it across the bottom. I'm the kind who's real exact and I'm not happy if it's not right on the part of the structure or shipwreck that I want it on. When it's rough, leave it and just keep checking it. Most of the time they bite well then and you don't have to wait much. In calm conditions, they may be on the side or top or (other) certain spots, so you'd better make drop after drop until eventually it'll land right on one.

"You can present your bait over and over on the sweet spot, and pick off all the fish that live in that area," he said. "It's all vertical."

Gear

"Fluorocarbon line is critical since you're fishing a rocky, snaggy area with mussels," Balog said. "You need abrasion-resistance and less stretch, and fluoro sinks to help get the bait down. I used to use Berkley Vanish, but now I use more Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. It's a little 'coilier,' but stronger.

"If I need an ultralight thin line in tough conditions, I'll use 6-pound Vanish. Otherwise I go to 8-pound Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. I also use that for shallower fishing with tube baits, jerkbaits and other lures."

Balog gets the drop on bass with fairly heavy, round dropshot weights. "I use up to 1/2-ounce when it gets rough," he said. "I fish a 4-inch Gulp! Sinking Minnow (green pumpkin) over a 1/2-ounce weight maybe 20 percent of the time, and use a light 1/4-ounce weight about 10 percent of the time. Most of the time, for deep isolated targets, I use a 3/8-ounce weight."

He uses a light rod 6' 8" medium-light spinning rod for dropshotting. "Since I use a No. 1 Gamakatsu dropshot hook, I can just pull with that light rod and that hook almost always ends up in the top of their mouth – and they rarely come off. You only need five (keepers) a day, so if it takes 10 minutes to land each fish, that's fine."

Notable

> Balog opts for round ball dropshot weights. "You'll lose less of the long skinny cylinder weights, but I like round because I like the feel of them. I like to be either on the bottom or off, with no mushy feel. The long weights you can sort of rock the weight on the bottom without it coming up (off the bottom) and it feels mushy. I can't feel bites as well."