BY THE TIME PUMPKIN-SPICE salsa and mayonnaise are back in stores, I’m losing my appetite for smallmouths. I love them dearly, but I spend so many days targeting them in spring and summer that when the temperature starts to drop here in the Northeast, I’d rather don long undies for stripers, pike, and steelhead. I’ve never really had regrets about it either. Until this year, anyway, after I had a chat with Michigan-based guide Mike Schultz. He calls the Huron River his home water, and while the rest of us deal with stuff like Christmas shopping, New Year’s resolutions, and February, he’s still chasing local bass. And no, he’s not twitching a jig painfully slowly in one hole for hours. He’s rowing a raft, working streamers with a fly rod, and sticking some pigs. It all started as an experimental cure for cabin fever but ultimately turned into a fine-tuned game that may completely upend what you think you know about winter bass behavior.
A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE
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