May 2018

It is no secret that the water in the Susquehanna River rises and when that happens, fish pull into creeks and away from their usual hangout spots. This raises the troubling question: How are you supposed to catch the fish now if they have pulled back so much? Continue reading to learn two tactics that will help you find those sneaky fish.

Adjust Your Bait

Sometimes you have to match the hatch of the bait by downsizing your jerk bait to a Lucky Craft Pointer 78. If downsizing isn’t the answer, you might have to cast out a little color like the Strike King KVD Slash Bait Jerkbait in Strobe Shad to get the fish to start biting.

I ended up catching a ton of fish in the creeks by using the downsizing technique and duplicating the pattern. I cannot stress the importance of fishing the Z-Man TT Lures NedlockZ HD Jighead rig. I had to modify it a little bit and use a weedless head. This allowed me to fish it closer to the cover with less snags. I also used the TRD HogZ in Green Pumpkin to present something different to the fish. The HogZ bait is a great lure to use in the rotation with your favorite tube to introduce a little variety. Don’t forget to include the exclusive SFT Weedless "Mikey" Tube Head. 

Where to Find the Fish

When the waters rise, the fish school up on every log jam in the creeks. When hitting areas of the water with logs, use the Z-Man Power Finesse Jig.

When you approach them, you might find that they won’t want to eat fast moving reaction baits. To accompany the jig, I paired it with the Z-Man Boar HogZ, casted it out, and held on. When flipping it into the logjams and debris piles of the river, the smallmouth bass started annihilating it. This jig was the ticket.

In order to catch the biggest fish in high pressured creeks, you need to do something different than your usual bait and hook. Play around with a few different kind of jigs and know where to look. At this time of year, there are tons of fish in the water, but you have to be willing to try different techniques in order to find them!