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You can catch them up here year round if you have access to the lake. Lake Washington and Sammamish are your best bets for year round smallmouth. The one benefit of living on this side of the mountains is we do not have to worry about lakes freezing. I know once the ice gets off of Banks lake in eastern Washington, it is lights out on the smallies. Over here now, I would say fish deep, 35-60' with football heads and dropshots. Fish slow and keep at it and you will find fish.

Black and white is one I have never really wanted to try either. When I had my bait company, I had a couple of guys special order this color. One guy ordered something like 300 4" ringworms. It must work.

I personally prefer the 5" baits. I actually used a bunch of 6" before they stopped making them in my colors. Smallies will crush a 5" hula grub, even the dinks. It is not too big by any stretch of the imagination.

Pretty good guess! Actually, I really like that mop head hawg. That thing would get bit for sure. I also want to try their lizards as well. Of course I will have to try the hula grub. I can not find a suitable replacement for a Yamamoto, and I don't think this will be it either, but it is worth a try. As a matter of fact, the only bait that I buy now besides the yamamoto is the Damiki Hydra. I just started playing with this bait last year and love it.

I throw a 1/2oz chartruese/white with gold willow or a chartruese willow blade. I also like white on white. Burning a spinnerbait is the real deal. I will also upsize at times to a 3/4 oz. Like RoadWarrior said, why downsize. Big smallmouth will crush a big spinnerbait.

Those are nice looking baits. I really like that skirted brush hog. I will have to place an order and see how they work. Thanks for the heads up.

I meant they carry the Eerie Darter, not the other bait picutured in this thread. Look under Poor Boys at the bottom of the page.

Those do look like sweet little baits. They remind me of a bait I designed several years ago and used to sell. I really like the ribs on the one above though, really nice. I would like to get some of those. FYI, if anyone is interested in pouring this bait, I gave my design to basstackle and they now sell it on their site. Great little bait for sure.

TW carries them. They have a good selection of colors. I have also been meaning to try these out. I have heard nothing but great things about them.

1/2-3/4oz football head with a 4-5" Yamamoto Hula grub in natural colors, like green pumpkin, watermelonseed, or my favorite #176.Throw this around any rock you find and you will catch smallmouth. You can drag this or hop it, let the fish tell you what they want. My other fall back technique for smallmouth is to drag a c-rigged 4-5" lizard or a baby brush hog in watermelon candy. Go with a 3/4-1oz. weight. I prefer the cylndrical type(Mojo). They seem to come through the rock better. You can even throw a lighter weight with your spinning rod, this would work very well too.

I also forgot to mention that plastic has gone up considerably since I started. Every little price hike cuts into your already low profits. Also, MonteSS is dead on with the price of custom aluminum molds. They run you a couple of hundred just for a simple 1 piece 5 cavity mold for the initial mold. If you want a more complicated bait like some sort of creature bait, then the price will more than likely be double that. One of the biggest factors in making money is saving time. So figure you need several of each mold to up production. I had at least 10 of each mold, and 15-20 of certain molds that I sold a lot of. I liked to pour at least 5 bags of baits at a shot. That is just something personal and you obviously don't need to do it that way. If you get yourself into some local tackle stores, start out with just a couple of baits in 3-5 of the most popular colors. This way you are not overwhelmed at first. Some small stores might want only 5 bags of each color while other stores might want 25 bags, it all depends. I will tell you this right now though, stores take a huge chunk of your profit. You have to sell to them at wholesale so they can get a piece of the pie too. If you can, try to sell on the web. This way, you get to keep all of your profit. Just my 2 cents.

It is very tough to turn a profit. I had my business going for about 5 years. I made a profit, but not a big one by any means. The time it took away from my fishing and family was not worth to me. I never got to prefish for any tournaments or do much fun fishing. A lot of nights it was home from work, grab a beer, head to garage, pour a bunch of baits, eat dinner really quick, back to the garage untl 11 or 12 at night. If you keep it small and don't expect to make a bunch of money, then I would say it is worth it. I love to pour baits, but I got pretty burnt out doing it. I actually sold all of my molds, which now I am kind of regretting. One more big thing was with the hand injection coming into the picture, it is really hard to seperate yourself from other people. We used to "hand pour" which takes a lot more skill to come up with double and triple pours. Now a guy who has only done this for a day or two can make a perfect bait. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it is a tough business. I will start pouring again one of these days, but only for myself and friends Good luck.

What do you guys prefer? I am going to buy a bunch of Hybrid for some of my baitcasting rigs but I was also wanting to try it out on one of my spinning rods. This will be on the rod I use for tubes, darter heads and other light applications. I use 8lb Invisix right now. I was thinking of trying out the 6lb hybrid. Is this a good choice? Thanks.

I have kind of noticed that upper end Daiwa's and Shimano reels are the only ones that hold their value pretty good. With other brands I would shoot for 1/2 price on a used one.

Isn't Yamamoto made in Arizona? Another small company that sells probably more dropshot baits than any other up here in the Pacific North West is Sniper Lures. They are made right here in Washington.

Mike, are you using regular Hybrid or Ultra Soft on your spinning outfits. I use Seaguar Invisix on my spinning rods now. I am still going to use it for my drop shot but I was wanting to try something new for my tube and darter head rods. I was thinking 6lb hybrid if it is manageable on spinning reels.

We also tend to upsize baits quite a bit. think it is important to show the fish something different. I got into a habit of using 6" Yamamoto Hula grubs until they stopped making them in color#176. I also like to use 6.5" lizards on a c-rig. I started messing around with the Power Team Diesel Craw this past year too. Put that on a football head and you have a big bass bait for sure. I know some guys up here in Washington that use this hand poured craw that I swear is about 8" long. It is huge! They catch some giant smallies on it though.

Plastic and glitter do not like to be melted and remelted too many times. The glitter will start to bleed and the plastic becomes easier to scorch.

Mike, I couldn't agree more with you! I would be down for at least 20 packs to start with. I sure hope Big O can make this happen for us smallmouth fishermen. They would fly off the shelves for sure!

Yamamoto probably makes the best. I really like color #176 for smallmouth. I just picked up a couple of packs of the Damiki Hydra twin tails and they look and feel awesome too. We fish these up here mainly on football head jigs without weed guards. I fish 3/4oz and 1/2oz most of the time but will go up to a 1 oz. when targeting fish in th 50' range or really heavy current. You can just drag these slowly back to the boat or hop them, depends on what the fish want.

I see this is getting a lot of views. Thanks for taking a look!

"Diary of a Bass Pro" by Joe Thomas

Hey guys and gals, I am writing to all of you in hopes of some support for a young man up here in Washington that is battling for his life. Chase Heaton is an 18 year old who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Chase is a big part of our North West Bass circuit up here. He is always there before first light, doing livewell checks and boat checks for us and checking boats in at the end of the tournament day. He is a great young man with a fantastic personality. The NW Bass community is trying to give Chase a dream trip to the Classic this year. Everything is already set up for him and his father to attend, we just need funds to make this dream happen. I know how caring and giving the fishing community can be, and I hope we can all give a little if possible. Thanks for your time. Here is the story straight from our NW Bass tournament director. Details our inside the link. Thanks. http://www.wafish.com/profiles/blogs/a-special-request-for-chase-heaton

I catch the majority of my bigger smallmouth on a 1/2 or 3/4oz football head tipped with a 5" Hula Grub in color #176 (cinnamon/black flake). A sweet beaver works great on the football head as well. Green pumpkin is always a good color to start with.