6 baits

[fromthelogo]

ZMan HogZ

3”-4” tube - ZMan or Dry Creek

Yamamoto D-Shad on a drop shot

 

DT6

DT10

Pointer 90

[Finessegenics]

Soft Baits

 

ZMan Zinkerz (to cut in half and make a ned bait)

4" Easy Shiner

XZone 5" True Center Stick 

 

Yes, two stickbaits. 

 

Hard Baits

I'm not crazy about treble lures so

 

Double Willow Spinnerbait

Suspending Jerkbait

Swim Jig

 

 

[king fisher]

Hula grub

Senko

Tube

 

Floating Rapala

#3 Vibrax inline spinner

Rebel Deep WeeR

 

[HookInMouth]

Soft Plastic:

Keitech Swing Impact FAT 3.8 / 4" Senko / Rage Tail Menace

 

Hard Bait:

Berkley Choppo 90 / Mike Bucca Baby Bull Shad / Lucky Craft LV500

[InfantryMP]

My Soft plastics will be:

 

1. Ned Rig (Robo, Zman)
2. T-rigged Craw (Rage Craw, Crackn Craw)
3. Stick worm (Dinger 5 inch)

Hard baits will be:

1. Chatterbait with craw trailer
2. Jig with craw trailer
3. Whopper plopper or buzzbait

I catch a lot of SMB on whopper ploppers, and neds in the creek. I have yet to really get on a smallmouth bite in a decent sized lakes or rivers. 

 

[brgbassmaster]

Tube, jig, swimbait, Spinnerbait, spook, blade bait. That should cover spring summer and fall. 

[Frezzy]

Great thread fellas...

 

Soft - 6' Senko, 3.8" Keitech Fat Swing Impact & 3.5" River Rock Customs Tube.

 

Hard - Vision 110 (Standard, 110+1 and Max LBO), Sammy 100 and Keitech Tungsten Football Jig.  Honorable mention goes to Brovarney Baits Swimjig.

[Choporoz]

I won't restrict myself to 6, but I am surprised that there aren't any Rage Bugs listed.  I would not be surprised if 1/3 of all my casts and pitches last year were with a Rage Bug.

[Swinghead]

Can’t tell you how many 3 to 4 pounders I’ve caught with a crappie jig in April. Seems I would be smart enough to keep using it when actually targeting the smallies. 

[Bluebasser86]

Z-man TRD

Zoom shakyhead worm

Strike King Menace

 

6th Sense Provoke

6th Sense Catwalk

Duo Realis Rozante 77

[gim]

tube

ned rig/trd

stick bait wacky rigged

 

chatterbait

jerk bait

shallow crank bait

[Junk Fisherman]

What's interesting is seeing the river guys' top 6 vs the lake guys' choices especially the up north lake guys. 

[Dwight Hottle]

On 2/1/2021 at 1:02 PM, JLBBass said:

Yep! Erie, about 15 years ago. Drifting a 4" tube, a few miles East of the W's, in about 25 ft of water. Took a few pictures, and sent her back to her home! Actually, I put her in the livewell, intending on keeping her, but after thinking about it a little, I couldn't get myself to keep such a beautiful creature, and let her go. Bad part......Cell phone pictures were on, puked that year, and I never backed up my pictures......?

I know that spot. 

[HookInMouth]

16 hours ago, Choporoz said:

I won't restrict myself to 6, but I am surprised that there aren't any Rage Bugs listed.  I would not be surprised if 1/3 of all my casts and pitches last year were with a Rage Bug.

Rage bug is almost interchangeable with the Menace for me. I like the slightly smaller profile of the menace for my waters (northern shallow rivers mostly). 

[MGF]

If I only list 6 it doesn't describe how I really fish but lets see.

x-rap

count down rapala

KVD square bill...but what about the floating Rapala, popper or plopper?

 

Tubes (rigged all sorts of ways)

NED (could be a tiny child version)

Soft stick (rigged one way or the other)

 

See but I left out several things that I catch a ton of fish on...Like a fluke, a finesse worm or a skirted jig.  

 

[TnRiver46]

19 hours ago, MGF said:

If I only list 6 it doesn't describe how I really fish but lets see.

x-rap

count down rapala

KVD square bill...but what about the floating Rapala, popper or plopper?

 

Tubes (rigged all sorts of ways)

NED (could be a tiny child version)

Soft stick (rigged one way or the other)

 

See but I left out several things that I catch a ton of fish on...Like a fluke, a finesse worm or a skirted jig.  

 

You’re like me and take 75 lures on a 45 minute fishing trip??

[Bdnoble84]

Plastics- zoom finesse worm, berkley chigger craw (neko rigged), some sort of toad

hard baits- homemade 3/8 spinnerbait, 1/4 oz homemade poisontail craftfur jig, #10 x-rap

[MGF]

5 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You’re like me and take 75 lures on a 45 minute fishing trip??

If I'm in the boat I'm usually pretty well stocked. If I'm wading the river or bank fishing I usually leave the truck with what I can carry in my pockets...back up supplies in the truck of course.

[ThatZX14Fella]

Soft baits would be:

Finesse TRD

Senko

Trick worm

 

Hard baits:

Squarebill

Spinnerbait

And pretty much any jig

 

I'm not naming brands and sizes because I don't pay that much attention to what I buy. I buy what looks good and what I think will suit my needs, and I leave it at that.

 

 

 

 

[Drew03cmc]

Honestly, floating the Ozark rivers, I would do pretty well with the following:

 

3" Tackle HD Hi Def Craw

3.5" Tackle HD Swimmer

Zoom Super Fluke

 

Duo Realis Rozante 77SP

Owner Zip N Ziggy/Whopper Plopper 90

Black Label Baits Peanut

[PaulVE64]

Senko

Tube

Baby Rage Craw

 

Square bill

Whopper plopper 

Jerk bait

[Deeare]

I primarily fish clear lakes in the northeast

 

Ned

tube

senko

 

Microjigs

squarebill

jerks

 

honorable mentions:   Grubs, jika rigged small craws and small rapalas

 

[Sphynx]

Oof...6 for a whole year? Well, I guess I would have to say the following...

 

Soft Plastics

1) Stick bait - probably a Yum Dinger, but I pretty much buy whatever is on sale/most affordable. Rig it a million ways, cut it down and you have a ned rig bait.

2) A Craw imitation - something like the Biospawn Vilebug would work, keep the appendages attached for a beaver style action, tear them free for more action

3) Paddle Tail Swimbait - Great on it's own, great as a trailer, underspins, all sorts of versatility, and with only 3 soft plastic lures it better be versatile 

 

Hard Baits

 

1) Jig - Dunno if we are allowed a full category or not, if so great, if not it'd be an Arkie style head, swim it, hop bottom with it, redneck engineer a blade on it, pitch, flip, punch, you can do pretty much anything with it.

2) Squarebill Crankbait - I think I could have gone either with this, or with a jerkbait, really a toss up, but with a limited number of baits I guess one's gotta win right? For a mostly bank angler the Squarebill is a better choice usually, and that's mostly how I fish.

3) Hollowbody Frog - Teckel Sprinker in particular, this can basically cover anything in the topwater realm, but I could almost say a walking bait would satisfy as well, I just feel that with this frog I can do a few more things than a walking bait can, at the possible cost of missing the hookups on a few more fish.

 

I don't think I'd ever put this list to practical use, but I would feel reasonably prepared if I were to show up at a tournament as a co-angler with a bag containing just these baits, I can absolutely see some places in this list that are glaring weaknesses, I just can't think of another combination of baits that doesn't leave even bigger holes in what I can cover...I'd probably be able to fish all of this on about 3 or 4 rods too...so it wouldn't be the most obnoxious setup for a back boat day.

[Leatherneck]

Maybe this deserves its own thread, but do Smallmouth ever hit Hard Swim baits and will not touch a soft swimbait/tube/grub/finesse worm?

[TonynswAR]

On 2/4/2021 at 9:10 AM, Junk Fisherman said:

What's interesting is seeing the river guys' top 6 vs the lake guys' choices especially the up north lake guys. 

After reading into this, thinking the same thing

 

new to SM fishing, shallow streams an rivers

 

hard

yozuri 70 3ds

spinnerbait

pointer

 

soft

yum dingers

yamamoto

flukes