How Bill Lowen Fishes for Northern Smallmouth Bass
I’ve already written about how there may be times when you can elect to discard the dominant technique and fish the way you want to, but there are also times when you can do the same thing in order to fish the way you have to. That’s been Bill Lowen’s modus operandi since he joined the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2006. He’s a shallow water Ohio River expert, and rather than figure out how to fish like they do in California or Michigan or Florida, he’s just continued to do his own thing whenever possible. It seems to have worked pretty well, as he’s fished 11 Bassmaster Classics and earned an Elite win in 2021.
For a guy who prefers to be stirring up mud with his trolling motor (he admitted to me a few years ago that he’s only caught one tournament fish on a deep diving crankbait), you might expect northern smallmouth venues to be his most challenging events. You might be surprised that he’s earned multiple top 20 finishes on the St. Lawrence River, as well as at Sturgeon Bay, Green Bay, and Oneida. Here’s his explanation of how he gets it done, filmed on a recent trip to Northern Michigan.
Tackle Mentioned
How Does This Apply to You?
One of the advantages of fishing travel is that it exposes you to new techniques, ideally on fisheries that have plentiful populations of bass. It’s why we repeatedly go back to El Salto and Picachos, where we’ve expanded our deep cranking, caught our first flutter spoon fish, and even experimented with “power dropshotting.” It’s also why we recommend that you take every opportunity to find “unpressured bass” to dial in your tackle choices for times when things are tougher.
At the same time, whether you’re fishing a tournament or just headed someplace exotic for a couple of days, you can’t waste valuable time doing something that’s uncomfortable for any reason – so if you’re not physically able to throw a Strike King 10XD all day, then you might by more comfortable dragging a Carolina Rig or football jig in the same places. Or, like Lowen, if you don’t like fishing deep, try to find some flowing water or a smaller but consistent resident population of shallow fish. It’s better to be 100% efficient on a secondary pattern than to be completely out of sorts doing whatever everyone else seems to think is the dominant pattern.
