TSJ Feature: 5-Star Bass

Texas is arguably king of the mountain when it comes to its largemouth bass fishing, but in other parts of the country the bronze-backed smallmouth reigns supreme. If you’ve never tested your angling skills against these feisty competitors, you are missing out.

A perk of my 35-year outdoor writing career has resulted in fishing coast to coast and discovering the best fishing spots. I chose my favorite places to fish for smallmouth bass through quality and quantity, or in other words, waters where I caught the most smallmouth bass in an eight-hour period with more than one bass up to or over five pounds. A couple of my top five top picks will likely surprise you.

Upstate New York:

Upstate New York has become my favorite smallmouth bass fishing area. Niagara Falls, world famous for romantic escapes and dare devil feats are home to trophy smallies. The danger of this stretch is measured in millions of gallons of water falling down a big cliff to create immense pressure that has crushed human bodies against large rocks and boulders. Extreme conditions are exactly why the Niagara River has always been a fisherman’s paradise. The waters are rough, but rewards are great in big lake trout and trophy smallmouth bass.

I recently watched Ernie Calandrelli maneuver his boat through these exceptionally rough currents and fast moving water two miles downstream from the famous waterfalls in search of a spot called Devil’s Hole, a boulder filled chute of terror for an inexperienced river fisherman. This powerful stretch helps create electricity in a nearby power plant while providing trophy fish with a wealth of forage washing down stream.

Calandrelli turned his boat towards the bank and gave the order to cast Luhr-Jensen Kwikfish lures in chrome and green colors.