River is quite low this year which makes fishing tough. Any lures or tactics you’d recommend?

32 minutes ago, ECP1989707 said:

River is quite low this year which makes fishing tough. Any lures or tactics you’d recommend?

Fly rod and poppers.

Seriously.

4 hours ago, Further North said:

Fly rod and poppers.

Seriously.

I fly fish quite a bit as well. Taking a friend out who has barely touched conventional so the fly rods are staying home.

Weightless finesse worm in watermelon seed

Weightless Fluke worked well for me last year in low water.

My nephew and his buddy have been mobbing on Black River smallmouths with a short (3-4 inch - almost a Tokyo rig) dropshot rig with a wacky hooked 4” Gulp Crawler. They just throw it out and dead stick it for 2-3 minutes then bump it a foot or so and repeat.

I forgot a tiny floating rapala as well

Choppo 120 is my low water finesse lure..

Seriously, we're at the point in the season where big smallies will sit in / near shallow water waiting to ambush anything around. Nothing quite like seeing that big torpedo wake zooming towards your topwater lure.

Can a choppo be considered a finesse lure? 😂

22 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Can a choppo be considered a finesse lure? 😂

I forgot the 😁

It may be different elsewhere, but this time of the year on the upper Miss or St. Croix, smallies are already at or near the shallow water, even with the rivers as low as they are right now. They usually smash anything that gets close, so finesse is pretty far down on my list of things to try.

TRD or craw Ned in your favorite colors. I fish these conditions a lot and Ned baits have worked best.

Allen