I don't fish many rivers,but here is my read on the smallie in general. I carry lures for top water,mid depth cranks or spinner baits,and stand up jigs and grubs. Colors are pretty simple. the curly tail grubs are chartreuse and smoke/glitter. The top water are Rapala or Storm brand,and what ever color suits the clarity, or my fancy, that day. I run from 2" to 5" floaters. If I have a spinner bait on,it's usually white. I do well with white. probably because I run it most of the time. I carry other colors. Chartreuse,black,brown and a green camo looking jobbie. Willow blades in nickel on the white. Cranks are Storm or Bomber. Blue/silver,black/silver or craw. I have a bunch of cranks and play around with different finishes,but I could live with these if I had to. As has been mentioned earlier,chartreuse grubs and jigs = money. My heaviest smallie came to a chart Galida grub on a plain ,unpainted, undressed stand-up jig. Can't be any simpler than that.