zachvii

My favorite deep diving cranks for smallies are Luhr Jensen Hot Lips. They are only 1/4 oz, but they dig down to over 10 feet easily and they have great rattles that small mouth love. My other favorite is wiggle warts. Warts are great when the fish want something slow. You can reel them very slow and the smallies love them. Any crawdad pattern is great.

I love the smallmouth fight over a largemouth anyday. Here in Idaho I catch a little of both randomly in the reservoirs and you can usually tell the difference right off the bat because the largemouth just dont have the same meaness of a smallmouth. I like that we have both species though because the odds of catching a 6lb smallmouth in Idaho are slim, but there are plenty of largemouth in that range to be had.

It doesnt look very deep. I would agree with the tube or a jig n pig. If you want to fish a lot of water and find concentrations of them, I would throw a shallow running crank bait and see if you can catch some.

There is always going to be big fish in every lake, it sounds like you are having a hard time getting to them. If you are catching that many fish, it sounds like it is just who gets to the bait first and the bigger fish tend to be smarter about jumping on the band wagon so to speak. Maybe try larger baits that the smaller ones can eat and see if you can get a big one to bite. I would try lots of different techniques until you find something that catches more quality fish.

This time a year i start with my fast moving baits such as jerkbaits and I slowly work my way backwards all the way to drop shot with 1 inch baits. If you are confident in the water you are fishing and know that the area holds fish then just try your best with whatever you have and never give up.

I usually cut the weed guards off if I do have to resort to jigs with guards. I fish very rocky water for smallies and more often than not it is going to hang up on the weight part of the jig anyways. I dont want anything between the hook and the fish mouth.

Its terrible line!

I am a life member and I have tested many of there products, but again like everyone has said above you never get anything more than 5 dollars to test. Every now and then there magazine has some good articles. I am in my 20's, so my life membership will eventually pay its self off with the subscription I get, but the Field Testing has been a joke for me.

Great information here guys. USA-Ret thanks for looking into this. Now I know in the future that the citca is the way to go.

This year I am going to try 10lb carbon pro and see how that works.

What are the best colors you have found for smallmouth in rocky reservoirs and lakes. I fish a lot of luhr jensen hotlips, but dont own any norman DD22's.

That fish doesnt even look like a smallie. I have never seen a smallie that is green like that. Maybe it is a spot hybrid with a large mouth? Even in the pic of the Maine smallie it is very dark gold color. I agree with Roadwarrior that i have never seen a smallie with a bellie like that. I would be skeptical of the picture.

I fish a Furnance Bay Rod that is 6'6 M with Medium Action with a curado reel. The rod is excellent for feeling crankbaits and is limber enough to give when the fish hits it so you dont pull the hooks. I would recommend a Medium action rod just so you dont pull the hooks out when you set it.

Hi All, I have seen and heard of people using every different action and tons of differnt lines while throwing a jerk bait. I have personally used not strech line such as firewire or some type of fluorocarbon in the 10 to 12 pound range for smallies. I have used MH rods with fast or extra fast tapers as well. I have seen people use rods that flexed like noodles before as well to fish jerk baits. I want to know what everyone uses while tossing a jerk bait. I mainly throw staysee's or other types of deep diving jerks. Line diameter is another thing I know is important so you can get the bait deep enough to fish out west. Please let me know line, rod action etc that you guys use.

These guys are always going to give a shout out to all their sponsors and say they caught all the fish on a sponsors bait. During the classic I did notice that a lot of the guys were using there signiture reels etc. probably because they knew this tournament was going to be covered completely by TV. I feel like they wouldnt take on a sponsor unless they were going to use there product some of the time, but I am sure they use everything under the sun through out a tournament season. After all sponsorships is where everyone makes there money. Skeet Reese makes over 500k a year in sponsorships.

From watching the classic, it was definitely the Strike King Red Eye Shad.

Any crank baits made my Lucky Craft I have not had any luck on. Staysee's and Pointers seem to be the only thing that works for me.

I want to catch a 4lber, let alone a 10lber!!! I guess thats what I get for living in Idaho where 5 and 6lb smallies are rare.

Last year the first tourny i fished was fridgid and they were not even hitting jerk baits. I ended up fishing 20 feet of water with tubes and stick baits on the bottom. The bite was almost nonexsistent, but they were there if you were patient. I believe the water was around 42-44.

I use Lucky Craft LV500 in Ghost Minnow and Chartruse Shad. You can hear the rattle miles away!!!

I use C rig all year. I use it in mainly clear water. The misconception is that you have to through large baits with a C Rig. To the contrary I love to throw small baits with the c-rig. 3in Senkos and 3 inch tubes are a couple of my fav baits with C-Rig. Dont worry about using a big hook either. I nose hook tubes all the time with rather large hooks and it doesnt seem to scare the smallies. I always give my self at least a 3ft leader between the hook and the weight. I use 3/4 oz bullet weights and carolina stoppers to round out the setup. I have caught most of my biggest smallies with this setup.

Agree, I use Skinny Bear Pro Series jigs, 1/4 or 3/8 with zoom jr chunk trailers