Martyn White | Thursday, 13 February 2025
I went out looking for Smallmouth this week. It wasn't good. Conditions weren't great. The river I chose was low and crystal clear, and I was fishing post front in high sun. I should have known better.
One thing I always do on my early season smallmouth fishing days is leave all the carp stuff at home. Simply because I know that while the smallie fishing can be slow at this time of year and requires a lot of repetitious blind fishing, there's always the chance of a BIG female starting to put on condition for the spawn in a couple of months. It could be the best fish of the season-I've broken my PB three time between valentines day and the start of March! I'm not good at resisting the sight of big carp feeding in shallow water and if I've suitable stuff for carp with me, I invariably end up going after them.
I always find I do better if I do one thing and make sure to do it properly. It's not that I can't target a couple of different species in one day, it's just that I always have a feeling of distraction that means I don't do either as well as if I was focused on just one. This should be obvious to anyone who's ever done anything! However, I think this only holds true for species that have different behaviours or require quite different tactics; going after say trout and grayling, or being ready for carp and barbel don't seem to have the same deleterious effect. Carp and bass are too different, especially here in the greater Tokyo area where the smallmouth must be some of the most pressured on the planet and few people bother with carp.
So especially in the early part of the smallmouth season here, I make the conscious decision to remove the distraction of carp and barbel. Later in the year when I've got a few smallies under my belt I'll start mixing it up a bit. Sadly, my focus wasn't rewarded this week, with only a little smallmouth about to hand from the only eat of the day. There were plenty of carp about, rooting around in the shallows that were warming quickly in the sun. I'd almost certainly have caught a few of them if I'd been carping. But I'd made my choice. The wrong choice on the day. I might make the same choice this week, it's hard to say. If I don't I might catch a couple of run of the mill 10lb carp, but I know I won't be in with a chance of a special smallie.