Hey everyone,

Tomorrow I have plans on going to a lake that has smallmouth and it will be my first time fishing for them as I have only been exposed to largemouth bass. I was wondering how my tactics will have to change to be successful. I have had great success with wacky rigged stick baits for largemouth and am hoping that smallmouth will take the same bait only in a smaller size. I am planning on using 4 inch stick baits and maybe some gitzit tubes. Anybody have any other suggestions or advice on baits or tactics that I would need to changing over from largemouth bass. Thanks for any suggestions and take care.

As a generality, smallmouth are found in cooler, clearer and deeper water than largemouth. I consider them pugnacious fish that will take a wide variety of lures, basically anything that a largie will take. Locating them will be job #1, harder and more critical than lure selection.

I've caught smallies on grubs on jigheads, soft plastics, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, topwaters and probably other stuff that I've forgotten about.

Good luck. If you hook into some you'll definitely notice a difference in the fight.