SMB: Possible to do well Spring through Fall with nothing but Soft Plastics?

[Leatherneck]

Wondering if a person could do well if they went through a season with only 3 or 4 rods rigged with nothing but your favorite soft plastics?

[Finessegenics]

Of course. Why wouldn’t it work? Hard baits are effective but you can find a style of soft plastic for any situation, even for reaction bites. 80% of my fish come on soft plastics rigged various ways. 

[ironbjorn]

Ned rig and drop shot, game over

[MGF]

Well I rarely carry more than 4 rods because I don't have room for more and, in the canoe, I rarely carry more than 2.

 

Most of my fishing is on a small river and most of my fish come on one flavor or another of soft plastic. I do use some skirted jigs, various jig heads and weighted hooks along with some of those plastics.

 

I've done well on hard baits too but I've been using them less and less the last few years.

[Smokinal]

1 hour ago, ironbjorn said:

Ned rig and drop shot, game over

Throw in some swimbaits and small soft craws and you're in!

[Dwight Hottle]

If you divide your soft plastics in different categories to cover all depths you should do well. First you need a soft jerkbait like a fluke to cover topwater applications. Second you need a soft swimbait to cover intermediate depths. Lastly you need a soft tube bait to cover the bottom applications. 

[FryDog62]

Easy, in fact outside of a Shadow Rap I pretty much only catch SMB on soft plastics:

 

•Wacky worm/Neko

•Caffeine Shad

•Ned

•Drop-Shot

[Boomstick]

Soft plastics are a huge percentage of my smallmouth fishing. I catch a few on jigs, swim jigs, spinnerbaits and crankbaits too, but I could manage with just soft plastics.

[Born 2 fish]

4 hours ago, ironbjorn said:

Ned rig and drop shot, game over

Let me add the super fluke to this list

[tracker01]

I use three soft plastic baits:

A tube

Another tube

And sometimes a different color tube.

That about covers my smallie presentations.

[roadwarrior]

Try the Rage Tail Menace, T-rigged.

 

[Spankey]

Great post. Love river smallies. Spot on responses and if I can add one more that almost all of us cut our teeth on. 3" grubs. Mr. T, PowerGrubs, Kailens and Zoom Fat Alberts all smallie catchers.

[Sphynx]

I catch a fair number of them on soft plastic swimbaits, the fluke is a fantastic little bait, stick baits, straight tail worms, curly tail worms, craws, creatures, tubes...no way you can not get it done with a soft plastics only type of mindset, you just might have to get creative on occasion.

[Junk Fisherman]

I caught a few smallies on jerkbaits last spring but everything else was on some sort of plastics.  

[Hollada]

I’d guess I catch somewhere in the vicinity of 750-1000 smallies a year.  Probably 75% are caught on plastics

 

- dropshot: SK ztoo, baby ztoo, dreamshot; Berkley maxscent; Yamamoto shad shape worm; various senkos

- tubes

- 3-4 inch keitech fat swing impacts on various heads 

[MassBass]

I would really suffer without rattlebaits, topwater, and crankbaits. I prefer to cover water and powerfish smallies, even though the trend these days is kind of counter to that.  

[ChrisD46]

On 12/12/2020 at 4:30 PM, roadwarrior said:

Try the Rage Tail Menace, T-rigged.

 

*Why I don't kayak fish in the ocean !!

[haggard]

On 12/12/2020 at 1:37 AM, Leatherneck said:

Wondering if a person could do well if they went through a season with only 3 or 4 rods rigged with nothing but your favorite soft plastics?

 

Yes that can certainly work. It pretty much sums up what I do.

 

- ML/XF spinning with 3.5 inch paddletail worm on a light jig head

- M/F baitcaster with either a Doomzday turtle or 4-5 inch worm, TX rigged 1/4 oz

- MH/F baitcaster with 6-7 inch ribbon tail worm, TX rigged 3/8 oz

 

 

[drakesndrum]

I love trying new things for river smallies.  Spinnerbaits and topwater are probably my favorite ways to catch them, but if I need a bite right now ...it's a soft plastic.  Fluke or wacky-worm 99% of the time.  If it's cold just slow it down.

[NYWayfarer]

My soft bait arsenal from spring to fall consist of the following baits

 

Zman finesse TRD

Stick bait (Yum Dinger GYBC Senko, etc)

Rage Tail Baby Rage Craw

Rage Swimmer or Storm 360 swimbait search bait 

Tubes (Strike King coffee tubes or Zoom super salty tubes)

Dropshot bait (Roboworm, Strike King Dreamshot, etc)

 

All bases covered right there.

[MIbassyaker]

Other than hard topwaters and a spinnerbait here or there, I think all the smallmouth I've caught in the last few years have been on plastics - mostly tubes, grubs, paddle-tail swimbaits, & small worms. But i'd never want to go without topwater in the summer.

 

However, all my smallmouth fishing is on small and medium sized rivers, where topwater rules in late summer. I also don't drop-shot because it is illegal in rivers & streams in Michigan (due to salmon-snagging)

[bowhunter63]

I do . Zoom fluke weightless and a Rage Craw t rigged or Rage rigged. Also the Wacky worm has been really working well the last couple years . 

[Backroad Angler]

I believe you can be very successful with just using soft plastics, as there are so many types of presentations with plastics. You can throw a creature, crawdad, worm, swimbait, and under those there are countless of different looking plastics that fish a different way and have there time and place to excel. Compared to like a crankbait, where all cranks are pretty much the same looking with just different colors, soft baits can be very different from each other, the only similarity is that they are made out of plastic.

[gim]

You could...but why would you want to?  If they're going on topwater, jerkbaits, or other power styles of fishing, use those instead.