I often keep 10 different St. Croix rods and reels rigged and ready to combat most smallmouth presentations.

If you were to ask me what my favorite lures are…I don’t have any. Whatever puts smallmouths into the boat!

Rapala X-Rap

There’s no better fish catcher throughout the year.

Jerk-jerk-pause…jerk-pause-jerk. Its retrieve styles are endless and infinite. The X-Rap can be fished in any type of manner, according to the moods and feeding patterns of the fish.

Nine times out of 10, smallmouths strike on the pause. However long you choose to pause should be based on water temperature and fish activity levels.

Smallmouths across the continent have remained unconditioned to the X-Rap. Never visit a smallmouth fishery without a handful of them in sizes 08 and 10. The Hot Head, Pink, Hot Mustard Muddler, River Perch, Purple Gold and Albino Shiner patterns have been my boat’s go-to in recent seasons.

Rapala X-Rap Pop

Whether fishing lakes or rivers, it’s hard to beat popper style and walk-the-dog topwaters. The smallmouths’ curiosity draws them to these baits due to the noise, commotion and water-pushing they accomplish.

Anglers may fish topwaters to experience the thrill of a strike. On the other hand, my boat treats them as a tool for targeting the largest specimens in the lake. Topwaters are big fish baits. Most of the big smallmouths we pursue during the summer months are enticed by a variety of topwaters worked over isolated, shallow structure from June through September.

From the early June spawning period through early September, the X-Rap Pop is a fish catcher during low-light conditions and on windless days. It excels best in periods of high humidity and engages some of the largest smallmouths in the system to strike and connect. The more obnoxious and loud your pops, the more strikes it triggers.

The only color you should need is “lemonhead—aka chartreuse ghost.

Paddletails

Paddletails and thumper-style swimbaits are among the hottest presentations right now. More anglers are fishing hard-thumping, bass-catching softbaits for smallmouths under a variety of conditions and situations.

A jig and paddletail combination remains a simple and effective fish finder. Rig a paddletail on a favorite swimming-style jighead for easy and engaging.

Year-round, anytime and anywhere, a variety of 3-to-5-inch models in natural and translucent patterns catch monstrous smallmouths. On my waters, rainbow smelt, cisco, yellow perch and shiner species are the most common prey. A thin and moderately supple tail segment produces the necessary tail-kick and movement critical for fishing success.

My extensive, most-used variety includes 5.0 Big Bite Baits Suicide Shads, 3.8 Strike King Rage Swimmers, 3.8 and 2.8 Keitech Swing Impact Fats, 3-to-5-inch Z-Man Diezel MinnowZs, 3.5 and 4.5 Kalin’s Tickle Tails, 3.8 Kalin’s Sizmic Shads, plus custom-requested pours and homemade baits made by friends.

For best performance, match the body with a properly corresponding head size, shape and weight to achieve swimming and tail action, as well as hookups.

Tube jigs

Poured in appropriate shades of brown, orange, green or melon, a tube can represent a crayfish, goby or perch. Tube jigs work in all types of smallmouth water. I fish tubes best with 1/16-, 1/8- and 1/4-ounce tube jig inserts. If dealing with heavy cover and rocks, I Texas rig them with weighted worm hooks. The Strike King Coffee Tube has scored hundreds of smallmouths for me.

Strike King took a relatively featureless, proven winner and upped the ante with the Coffee Tube. It provides a strong, coffee-and-caffeinated scent that entices fish to bite. Top colors are green pumpkin, magic goby and crazy craw.

A Get Bit Baits 3.5″ DD Tube is double-dipped for enhanced durability; they last much longer than most other tubes. Another good option with additional unique colors is Big Bite Baits 3.5 Salt Tubes.

In lake regions with sparse snags, I most often fish tubes with an exposed hook. It’ll simply connect with more fish and light biters. Lately I’ve been turning more to the “Stupid Rig”—a snag-proof, Texas-rigged variation with an EWG tube insert (any tube insert brand is fine). It fishes effectively and snag-free on rock piles, wood and cribs. It’s also my rig of choice when floating river systems.

I also employ a swinging head jig such as the 1/8- and 1/4-ounce Freedom Tackle Zodiac Jig. Utilizing an interchangeable hook system, the hybrid football jig allows the bait to swing freely, creating action. When hooked, smallmouths are not able to use this tube jig as leverage when trying to shake free.

When smallmouths aren’t chasing moving baits or won’t pick up another type of bottom bait, the trusty tube often saves the day.

Swimming grub

Perhaps the greatest smallmouth bass bait of all time? Grubs mesmerize smallmouths everywhere.

Whether slow rolled and retrieved along bottom, high in the water column, or somewhere in-between, a swimming grub does it all.

The grubs I depend on the most are made by Kalin’s, Strike King and Berkley.

Kalin’s 5-inch Lunker Grubs fished on exposed 1/4-ounce minnow heads are my boat’s fish finders and fish catchers on most days. If downsizing is necessary, as when smallmouths are fixated on smaller prey, downsize to a 3-inch Lunker Grub with a 1/8-ounce head.

On lakes, match the hatch with natural baitfish profiles and translucent colors. On river systems, smallmouths could be favoriting crayfish instead. Many grubs are available in crayfish patterns.

Casting and steadily retrieving them is the standby technique. Jigging and crawling them along the bottom under slower speeds can be done, too, with the only adjustment to consider being usage of a mushroom- or football-style head.

In deeper water, you can get bites along the first breaks in 10- to 15-foot depths and atop shallow flats when drifting and covering water. Bomb cast along the breaks and run your swimmer thru the lower water column. Turning your reel once every second will maintain it at these depths.

Hula grub

The skirted, twin-tail grub regarded as a “hula grub” has also put big smallmouth bass in my boat.

Best fished with a weedless bullet head in rivers, on football heads, or swinging head jigs, it is a deadly bait that represents bottom-scurrying crayfish.

The Trokar HD Shell Buster in 1/4- to 1/2-ounce sizes makes a formidable combination with my favorite hula grub. I fish the combo in all depths, from shallow rock bars and flats in summer, to deep rock and wintering locations in fall.

Nowadays, a lot of soft plastics brands produce their own versions of the hula grub. Without question, my favorite is the 5-inch Chompers Skirted Twin Tail Grub.

My favorite colors are Orange Marmalade, Root Beer Green Flake and Cinnamon Purple Flake.

Ned rig

Nowadays, I always keep one tied on a 7-foot, medium-action, finesse spinning rod, whether it’s my super-size AR Rig or Z-Man’s TRD.

Rapidly becoming the greatest fish-catcher of all time, it is simple, frugal and efficient. The Ned rig excels in difficult fishing conditions, on pressured waters, and is one of the best clear-water finesse fishing options to consider. Today, several Ned rig variations are available from several manufacturers, most notably from Z-Man Finesse Baits.

The new Finesse TRD stickbait and Finesse ShroomZ jigheads, along with Midwest finesse staples like the Finesse WormZ, Hula StickZ, Finesse ShadZ and 3.75” StreakZ, provide all the tools needed to employ the Ned Rig and all its variations. Kehde’s small jighead and plastic combo look unassuming on the surface, but its buoyancy, slow fall, and darting action are astonishing, eliciting strikes in even the toughest conditions.

In the event smallmouths are favoring a super-sized meal, or want a bottom-oriented Ned, I turn to my specialized AR Rig, using a 4.5-inch, all-black stick worm rigged on a 5/16-ounce mushroom head.

Every soft plastics manufacturer is molding their own variation of the Ned rig. We’ve scored success with Missile Baits Ned Bombs, Bizz Baits Ned Dizzy, 3-inch YUM Dingers, 3-inch Yamamoto Senkos, 3-inch Reaper tail plastics, and Berkley MaxScent Flat Worms, to name a few.

Fishing Neds as a bottom presentation calls for full bottom contact and use of a heavier head. I use a 5/16-ounce mushroom head custom-poured by our friend Gregg Kizewski of 3G Smallmouth Solutions in St. Germain, Wis. For snaggy situations, such as dealing with rock piles wood and cribs, Gregg also makes them weedless with his Next Level Jig that can be Texas rigged.

For more fishing insight from the pros who know, check out the next issue of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.