One of Mike McSwain’s favorite summer haunts on the Broad River is the backside of the Parr Reservoir above the Alston canoe launch. He heads upriver and stays to the right where the river forks. It’s a few miles upriver, so he uses his trolling motor when the depth allows it, and once at the dam, he’s in business.
“You’ll catch a lot of good, healthy, quality smallmouth up here. I like to get as close as I can to the dam, then cast parallel to the wall. It’s okay if your lure hits the wall before plopping in. Sometimes it will literally land on top of the fish,” he said.
“The fishing here is so good that sometimes I’ll spend a whole trip right at the dam. But I catch a surprising number of smallmouth a few hundred yards downriver as well. It’s easy to find them where ripples in the water form lines showing where current is meeting slack water or one current meeting another current that is flowing a little differently. Where those currents meet can be dynamite, and as long as you pay attention to the surface, you’ll be able to identify those spots,” he said.
Mepps spinners, Speed Craws and Rat-L-Traps are all good at the dam, and McSwain said if you’re not getting bit often, allow the lures to sink deeper before starting the retrieve.
“Some days they’ll hit it right away, but other days, they’ll want the lure to get down deeper. You’ve just got to experiment a little bit, but one thing is for sure. Plenty of smallmouth are there at the dam, and they are just as willing to bite as any other fish on the river,” he said. “Don’t make a handful of casts here and then call it quits. Spend a little time trying different retrieves if the bites aren’t coming easy. You’re in the right spot, and it won’t take long to find the secret to getting bites that day.”
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