What's the best smallie tip that you've learned or been told that you're willing to share?

Don't be afraid to cast a topwater lure over deep water as smallmouth often suspend out there and will come up to hit a surface lure.

On hot Summer days fish the fast rapids. Sure you get hung up, but the smallies are there.

Big ones love the channel I caught this one in middle of the lake over creek channel 130 ft deep..

A Lucky Craft 128 is Not Too BIG !

A-Jay

Smallies will come up through the water column a long way to eat what they perceive to be a dying bait.

Pay attention to what prey the fish you catch are spitting up. Smallmouth can be really picky about what prey they are targeting. A football jig dragged through a school of smallmouth keyed in on perch fry can be completely ignored.

In still water <12' deep, the Fat Ika is unsurpassed.

In still water <12' deep, the Fat Ika is unsurpassed.

How do you rig it?

Standard rigging: #6 Yo-Zuri Hybrid/ 7' MF spinning tackle/ 4/0 Gamakatsu Offset Worm Hook (thin wire)/

skirt forward, weightless & weedless. BTW, this is the basic rigging I had at Guntersville last spring. The

only difference was #4 Hybrid. My big bass was 7-7.

Skirt forward? Like a spider grub?

Skirt forward? Like a spider grub?

Yes.

The skirt flares back against the body when you move the bait up or forward. The Fat Ika

falls away from you when you drop it on slack line and the skirt flutters up. Play with the thing

in clear water and you will swear it's alive!

Never try and net them the first time to the boat!

Jeff

On hot Summer days fish the fast rapids. Sure you get hung up, but the smallies are there.

Yup, around the rivers here when it heats up those fish will be right up in the middle of the white water.I feel like I'm fishing for trout lol.

Never try and net them the first time to the boat!

Jeff

Hahaha fished a night tournament on bull shoals and my partner caught a 4lb smallie and got it up by the boat, I tried to net it and it jumped OVER the net and immediately threw the jig. I felt as tall as an ant.......

Another one I just thought of concerns tubes. Leave a little air space between the jig head and the closed end of the tube, the trapped air in there really helps in not getting snagged. The tube hits the cover and deflects off, it really helps with snags and I think it has improved the number of fish I catch.

Don't be afraid to cast a topwater lure over deep water as smallmouth often suspend out there and will come up to hit a surface lure.

You're right about this. From time to time, I'll sling a topwater bait out into the open, blue yonder and triggered an eruption.

This is a good thread. Thanks for starting it. I'm not a sophisticated fisher. I use two primary tactics to best bass. The first is a split shot above a bait hook with a leech over the side of a canoe. That has caught thousands of bass. The second is an F13 Rapala, which allows me to cast farther, but still finesse. I fished with an outdoor writer last fall and he thought me kooky for twitching such a long lure for smallmouth, but he soon switched when he saw me catching bass that didn't care about the size of bait, but were beyond his reach.

Best tip I've ever had. "Forget everything you know about catching LM and you will catch Smallies". I thought that was a rude comment at the time but once I did it and quit fishing like I did for LM the Smallies became a lot easier to catch.

Commit yourself to learning the dropshot technique because it will produce in water 3 feet deep and 43 feet deep.

Best tip I've ever had. "Forget everything you know about catching LM and you will catch Smallies". I thought that was a rude comment at the time but once I did it and quit fishing like I did for LM the Smallies became a lot easier to catch.

So that's why I never catch any largemouth. I'm always in the smallie mode.

So that's why I never catch any largemouth. I'm always in the smallie mode.

Your pics suggest you're always in mega-smallmouth mode. I bet when your fish regurgitate what they've just eaten, you see things like Godzilla and the Kraken.

Don't believe 'em when they tell you you have to use small baits...

Fish exposed hooks whenever the cover allows.

Mid-day summer location in natural lakes: when fishing a feeding flat mid-day, turn around and throw out the other side of the boat. Smallmouth can be caught mid-day in the summer suspended at the the same depth as the flat a long cast out from the drop off of the flat over much deeper water.

oe

So that's why I never catch any largemouth. I'm always in the smallie mode.

I don't know about you Dwight, but I have a difficult time remembering anything let alone trying to intentionally forget it.

I don't know about you Dwight, but I have a difficult time remembering anything let alone trying to intentionally forget it.

Now that you mention it I can't remember.