Does any one else do this? Beside craw fish crank baits i think this is the best way to catch river smallies. I use Yum's craw bug in various colors with the leader on the C-rig about 1-2 feet. The craw bug glides sinks though the water SO slow but fast enough to make it look like its living its last 5 mins of its life (once a smallie sees it the craw bug will be living its last seconds) Any one else do it and can share the way you do it because this is my favorite way to catch river smallies.

I have never did that for smallies but it sounds like it would work.

I rarely fish with plastics in streams or rivers for smallies but when I do I usually fish it weightless.

I grew up trout fishing and feeling very light strikes. I have a harder time doing this when weights are involved.

Even though smallies love crawbugs I try to fish more with minnow immitations. I have found that big smallies love

big dying minnows. I throw the biggest jerkbaits I can find and large inline spinners. When all of that fails I will go

to the senko or a tube. I will have to give this more of a try this year.

I will tell you something I probably will kick my self later for.  I was in a tourney last year and It was getting late in the day and we didn't have much weight.  I thought I would try a c-rig with a Gary Y. craw.  and let me tell you with in 2 hours we had 0ver 20# of smallies with 5 fish.  That was our last tourney of the year and it was great  I can't wait to try it this year to see if it was a fluke or what.  

Tight lines

Scott

It is no fluke. I wanna use it more I have alot confidence in using it. Maybe I'll learn how to use it and post somthing usefull here like a article

what hook did  you use on this carolina rigged craw?

I do think it is an underutilized technique. Getting down to depth may be a part of it. I've also used Senkos/Dingers on a C-Rig in rivers for smallies. I believe they think it is foodsource  :-?

My weakness is carolina rig fishing, i rarely do it and am ashamed i havent because everyone raves about it, to answer your question other i also use the yum craw bugs just started too last summer and man are they great to use, i watched this on a bill dance show one time and he uses the booyah baby boo jighead and so i copied him, they are really easy to rig and this regular texas style with a jighead was deadly for me, too bad it was at the end of the season, im going to use them like crazy this upcoming season, i went a little nuts hence the username  ;D, on ebay won an action that was selling like 40 packages of these baits in basically all the colors offered, and the price was unbeatable, man i cannot wait  

Which color works the best in cold, clear water for you guys?

I like red shad