Time to land a lunker largemouth
Bass season opens on all Pennsylvania lakes and streams Saturday. Southwestern Pennsylvania offers some really good bass fishing once you know where to go and how to fish each impoundment or stream.
While a lunker largemouth bass is the ultimate trophy, they are not as plentiful in area waters as smallmouths.
Very few local impoundments are known for their largemouth bass fishing. Years ago, Cranberry Glade Lake in Somerset County was the premier largemouth bass lake in the area, but reproduction has been poor at the impoundment for many years, and most new fish are introduced by an occasional planting of fingerlings by the Fish and Boat Commission.
To find a really hot spot for largemouth, make friends with your local farmers as most of the real lunkers in this area come from farm pounds and private impoundments.
The old Waynesburg reservoir along Route 18 reportedly still holds quite a few lunker largemouths as does Dunlap Creek Lake, which gives up a few citation catches each year.
Cross Creek Lake in Washington County, which was created primarily as a bass and walleye fishery has been “”hot’ the past few years.
Along with Dunlap Creek Lake, Fayette County has other good bass fisheries in Virgin Run Dam, Bridgeport Dam and the Youghiogheny River, which is one of the better smallmouth fishing streams in the county as is the Monongahela River.
Most Greene County streams hold smallmouth bass. Whiteley and Dunkard creeks are currently being studied and managed as smallmouth bass fisheries, while Duke Lake at Ryerson Station State Park is a great place to catch largemouths.
Canonsburg and Dutch Fork Lakes in Washington County are also very good bass lakes. The county has good smallmouth bass fishing on Wheeling Creek, the Monongahela River, Tenmile Creek, Little Chartiers Creek and Templeton Fork.
High Point, Lake Somerset and the Youghiogheny Reservoir are excellent bass fisheries in Somerset County, while Westmoreland County has several hotspots, which include most lakes stocked with trout.
In the most recent fish survey done on the Youghiogheny Reservoir, smallmouth bass were the second-most abundant fish captured. They ranged in size from five to 20 inches with the majority (68 percent) being greater than 12 inches.
Fishery biologists said that the population has shifted from smallmouth/largemouth bass to predominately smallmouth bass. Biologists concluded, “The Youghiogheny River Lake provides anglers with an excellent smallmouth bass fishery with many quality-size fish.”
Bass are found in the warm, shallow water of lakes and streams. Largemouths prefer weed-choked backwaters, while smallmouths like rocky-strewn shorelines and polished boulders in moving water.
Largemouths mostly feed around structure such as boat docks, brush, boulders, downed trees and weedbeds, while smallmouth dine in moving water of streams and on rocky dropoffs in lakes in about 15 feet of water.
Since smallmouths and walleye often frequent the same areas, anglers often target bass but catch walleye. If it is bass you want, try fishing a little shallower. If walleye are hitting at 25 feet, try fishing six or eight feet shallower to find the smallmouths.
On larger impoundments, look for smallmouths in 12 to 30 feet of water and start fishing near the bottom.
Bait and lure selection is about the same for both species of bass. Nightcrawlers, minnows and crayfish are the best all-around live baits.
The choice of artificial lures is limitless with popping bugs, spinnerbaits, spoons, buzzbaits, shallow and deep-diving crankbaits and a myriad of plastic baits from worms to crawfish producing catches, depending on location and conditions.
Bass fishing is usually best in the early morning or evening hours, and night fishing with dark-colored surface lures can be especially effective on a steamy summer night.
No matter where you go or how you fish, bass fishing has to be the most fun as even a six-incher will bite like a bulldog fight like a pit bull terrier.
Grab your rod, some bait and the kids and go “kick some bass.”
Herald-Standard outdoors editor Rod Schoener can be reached on line at rschoener@heraldstandard.com.