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

I swim a Green pumpkin goby TRD on a 1/8 Swing head jig. Followed up with a little brass blade mepps inline spinner waked just under the surface when they start busting.

And them just because I can't help myself, I huck a 1/2 structure jig with a black and blue rage craw. Good takes are far and few between, lots of tail grabs, but when you hook up, they're the right ones

Low water makes fishing so much easier. Just find areas that still have some depth. It just has to be slightly deeper. If there is some current too, you’re in the right spot. Right below a riffle where the water is churned up will have more oxygen. Fish will be concentrated. Because they can’t move around much, they won’t have a lot of choices so almost anything you throw will work. Lure choice really doesn’t matter a whole lot. Any of the lures mentioned will probably work….If, you can get to a spot like i mentioned you won’t have any trouble.