I am going small mouth fishing in June and I need to know what soft plastic to throw.

 

I have a spinning rod and a bait caster so I can throw basically everything.

tubes, rage tail menace grub and a senko                                                            mic drop

1. TRD in Green Pumpkin=Snack Time!

Where are you going?  It could be a tube, dropshot bait, swimbait, or a TRD depending on where you are going.  

Cross Tail Shad

Roboworms

Gulp! Minnows and Leeches

 

I have a few favorites; a TRD, stick worms, swimbaits.

 

Really, the only plastic I haven't had much success with are big ribbontail worms. Still, someone's probably going to reply to me saying that a ribbontail is their favorite ?. Smallies will go after anything, but like @Junk Fisherman said, the "best" may depend on where you're fishing as well as how you want to fish. 

Where are you fishing?? Lake, creek, river??

Tube

TRD (Ned rig)

Keitech Fat Swing Impact

Senko

 

In that order

 

Tubes, Roboworm straight tail & alive shad, TRD and rage tail craws

Rage Tail Menace

Ned rigs, tubes, stick worms, drop shot worms, hula grubs, Rage Menace. 

Rage Tail Menace / Keitech 3.8

 

I texas rig both 3/0 ewg hook and 1/4-3/8 tungsten worm weight. 

i use tubes, wacky rigged senkos and biffle bugs on a biffle swing jig

• Be open minded. Most appropriately sized plastic s will work. My go tops  tubes,grubs,senkos worms. In no particular order.

On 4/12/2021 at 3:33 PM, JWall14 said:

Where are you fishing?? Lake, creek, river??

A lake with rip rap banks.

Whichever ones I forgot at home

11 hours ago, Swampdonkey fishing said:

A lake with rip rap banks.

I'm fishing rip rap in a few weeks for a tournament and my partner and I are going ned rig, neko rig, and multiple 3 in swimbaits. The swimbaits will not get hung up as much as the ned rig and smallmouth destroy small swimbaits. Tubes also are good as they will get bigger bites (9 times out of 10) than the ned and get hung up less.

I think I saw only one mention of swimbaits, the Keitech Fat.  That's excellent in 3.8 (I think).  Also the Strike King KVD perfect plastics coffee shad in 4 or 5 in (5 is not too big for smb).  I fish them on darter head and long shank ball head jigs, 3/16 oz, most often in white.  For rip rap I would try a Tokyo rig with a skinny tungsten sinker to eliminate snagging as much as possible.

 

Try fairly aggressive lift and fall and also slow steady until you find what they want.  When they are "on" these things they hit fast and aggressively, often on the fall.  Make sure you leave a good hook gap-only down side of these things is that hook sets can be a problem.  Last week I caught about 6 of the 9 that bit.

Just now, MickD said:

I think I saw only one mention of swimbaits, the Keitech Fat.  That's excellent in 3.8 (I think).  Also the Strike King KVD perfect plastics coffee shad in 4 or 5 in (5 is not too big for smb).  I fish them on darter head and long shank ball head jigs, 3/16 oz, most often in white.  For rip rap I would try a Tokyo rig with a skinny tungsten sinker to eliminate snagging as much as possible.

 

Try fairly aggressive lift and fall and also slow steady until you find what they want.  When they are "on" these things they hit fast and aggressively, often on the fall.  Make sure you leave a good hook gap-only down side of these things is that hook sets can be a problem.  Last week I caught about 6 of the 9 that bit.

I forgot to mention that one reason I like these is that you can cover a lot of water efficiently with them.  Some of the other options, while good, take a lot of time to figure out whether or not there are any fish there.  And a lot of time to cover water as you are searching for them.

Gitzit's all day 'er day!

Didn't see anyone say anything about Nikko Hellgrammites. They absolutely kill, but they do cost a pretty penny. You most definitely get what you pay for though, the plastic is top notch. Can't say I have ever "worn one out" they are Z-Man level durable, if not more. They also hold scent really really well which is super advantageous for smallmouth fishing. 

 

They can be a bit hard to find though, and the Strike King hellgrammites are an alright alternative. 

Well, about 47 people beat me to it, but: tubes.

 

Also curly tail grubs.

Dark sleeper has been killing it for me for the past week.

Nikko helgrammites- 3"

Keitech Crazy Flapper 2.8"- very underrated bait... I usually Texas rig this one with 1/8 oz. tungsten 

Keitech swing impact fat 3.3" or 3.8"

Any green pumpkinish tube ~3.5"

 

 

 

Senko's & flukes.

For spring and summer I throw a lot of creature baits like Yum crawbugs, lizard creature baits, senkos cut into ned rigs and swim shads or rapalas.

 

For fall I switch to more aggressive swim baits, spinners, and big worms.

 

Winter is the time I use live bait the most since I have very little luck catching bass in the winter without some kind of live bait like shad, shiners, crawfish, or nightcrawlers pumped with air on a weedless hook (work it slow) let the worm do most of the action itself.

 

I fish clear water fast moving rivers though, for small lakes and ponds I would look above for better options.