Senko fishing
 

I am heading up to Minaki and would like to learn about fishing with Senkos for smallmouth. Is late August a good time for Senkos? I usually use tube jigs for bass, What is your favorite way to rig them, wacky rigs or texas rigs?
Thanks for any info.

I haven't been on Minaki, but the northern waters of LOTW the smallies are loving Ned rigs and small 2.75-3" swim baits on ned rig 1/6oz jigs.

[QUOTE=martinbns;6350148]I haven't been on Minaki, but the northern waters of LOTW the smallies are loving Ned rigs and small 2.75-3" swim baits on ned rig 1/6oz jigs.[/QUOTE]

Having never fished fall smallies , and only once in the spring , what kind of depths , and weeds , rocks , both , asking because I am leaving next week and want to try them as well

[QUOTE=ia bhtr;6350170]Having never fished fall smallies , and only once in the spring , what kind of depths , and weeds , rocks , both , asking because I am leaving next week and want to try them as well[/QUOTE]

Smallies are aggressive, I wasn't out last weekend but had each before that. Temps have cooled which should help, we fish 4-10 feet of water, boulders are great, weeds can be hard to find, they puke up crayfish constantly. My wife has been doing great with the little swimbaits, I tend to use variations on the ned rig, zman hulasticks with an inch cut off, little crayfish plastics on ned jigs and straight ned rig baits. When I get bored I have also casted Rapala DT 6&10 into shore or parrelel.

When we fished the Minaki area for smallmouth, I initiated a competition with our guide one day. He was using tubes and I was using a Senko. I fish with Senkos a lot and catch a ton of largemouth bass on them, so I was very confident I would do very well. He put the smackdown on me. We still refer to it as the "Clint smallmouth bass clinic". I eventually switched to a tube. This was in June so the conditions are different from the fall bite, but he convinced me overall that the tube is a superior bait for catching smallies.

I found senkos to work well under conditions where SMB are related to larger rock/boulder fields in 5-12 FOW. I use unweighted 5" senkos Texas Rigged to work over larger rocks. The falling dead stick action on the senkos entices strikes from SMB embedded in the rocks. In my experience Texas Rigging works better for me with senkos in this application. Generally snag free approach fishing those bigger rock fields that can be tough to fish using other methods. Wacky rigging senkos works better using drop shot technique with more amenable bottom cover conditions.

Good luck.

While I LOVE fishing Senkos locally, they wouldn't be my first choice for Fall smallies, especially in Canada.

In less than 12' of water I'd use jerkbaits and swimbaits to cover water and tubes and ned rigs to target specific structure.

In deeper water I'd almost exclusively use a dropshot.

Smallie fishing in the Fall is more about finding the large schools and less about what bait to use. They start grouping up as the temperature falls. If you find the schools you'll be in heaven.

senko's
 

we fish them alot northern wisc
Smallie's love this lure! fish them real slow in deeper water on the first cast just let it sink put the rod down also there are weight spikes you can add to make them sink faster. Then slowly twitch it on windy day's they dont work as well good luck

I fish senkos a lot in southern ontario (Kawarthas, Muskoka) and years ago on Lady Evelyn

Basically at that time of year we have done well in two area's:
1) Boulder strewn shorelines - basically we found hard bottom with 1 foot to 2 foot diameter boulders was great mid September - assumption is the bass were feeding on crayfish
2) Fishing the deep side of any remaining green weedbeds - best seemed to be where there was a mixed bottom - sand, some rocks etc

Overall I am also fishing wacky rig style - in terms of colours favorites are green pumpkin/red flake, white and green laminate and from zman The Deal (this was deadly on the boulder pattern)

Good luck
Gordy

[QUOTE=DocNorthern;6350098]I am heading up to Minaki and would like to learn about fishing with Senkos for smallmouth. Is late August a good time for Senkos? I usually use tube jigs for bass, What is your favorite way to rig them, wacky rigs or texas rigs?
Thanks for any info.[/QUOTE]

work fine year round. GP or BB and wacky.

Have fun