Smallmouth bass fishing is often associated with slow finesse tactics, baits that you drag on the bottom, drop shot, split shot, Ned rig, two baits, things like that, right? Work them on the bottom, and the fish pick them up off the bottom. Yeah, those work great. I mean, obviously, they've been working for a long time, and a lot of people catch a lot of fish doing that. However, they do best when the situation and the conditions are pretty tough and the bite is a little bit slow or off. When the bass, especially smallmouth, are really active and moving around and aggressively chasing bait, there are other baits that work even better. You can catch more bass and even larger ones by using these five baits that I'm just about to tell you now right now.
So when the bass are aggressive, pull these out, starting with topwater baits. Topwater baits, there's a plethora of baits out there, but when you're looking for larger bass when they're very aggressive, especially smallies, it really narrows down your choices. A couple of them to look at. One is your popper-style bait. Yeah, the Rebel Pop-R works really well, especially when it's really slick out, but I go for the larger popper type baits like the Hula Popper or something big, bulky that really spits out a lot of water, has a large profile, creates a lot of commotion in the water. That tends to attract the larger smallies. They're looking for an easy big meal to go after when they come out there and just whack that lure, man. It's exciting.
Another type of lure I use is the prop-style baits. So it looks like a minnow that's got a prop on each side, kind of like the Smithwick Devil's Horse. That's a good one, but it's kind of a thin one. I want something that's a little bit more bulk to it. That's when I turn to something like the Abino 110F from Nishine Lure Works, for example. That's a bigger, bulkier bait. It's really realistic-looking Japanese-style bait. Creates a lot of commotion in the water. And, again, it gets those really big bites.
Another type of bait is the topwater walking baits. So a Zara Spook, the full-size Zara Spook is what I'm talking about, or a Sammy, not a Sammy Jr., but the full-size Sammy. Again, when a bass whacks those things, man, it's exciting. These work really well, whether it's windy or not. If it's windy, you've got a little chop in the water, then you want to make a little more action, a little more commotion with them to get the attention of the bass. When it's calm out, don't work them out as aggressively. But when you've got clear water, especially the clearer the water, the better.
I can get bass from as deep as 30 to 40 feet deep to hit these baits when you're working them over a point, over a rocky hump or a rock pile, working it just off a ledge, a steep point that goes into deeper water. Sometimes even shallow water, like a flat that's got scattered stumps or rock piles or scattered vegetation, those work really well too. But I like the deeper water simply because when you can call up a bass from deep water or smallmouth, they're going to come racing, and they're going to hit it just like a Polaris missile, man. They come completely out of the water with the bait in its mouth. So exciting. So definitely use those baits when the bass are aggressive.
Another type of bait, spinnerbaits. Spinnerbaits work really well when the bass are aggressive. I think that's a bait that's often not thought about when it comes to smallmouth bass fishing. And you guys are missing out if you've never fished a spinnerbait for smallies because, boy, they whack them, and they whack them hard. Typically because when I'm using them, it's when the bass are aggressive, and I bring it back quickly. You cast it out and rapidly bring that bait back fast. Either you just bulge it just under the surface so the blades don't break the surface but they're just underneath it so it looks like something just like... [vocalization], you know, it's bulging. You can see it just under the surface. Or you just bring it back at a quick enough pace where it's running where you can still see it. Not so deep that you don't see it anymore, but bring it back at a rapid pace.
Now, in order to do that, you need a heavier spinnerbait. So, typically, guys throw 3/8-ounce spinnerbaits, but when you're bringing it back fast like this, those lighter baits tend to fall over, and they roll over on one side. So a minimum 1/2-ounce is what you want to use. I use 3/4-ounce, and you're using either a Double Indiana or a Double Willow Leaf Blade. Works really well. The Willow Leaf works better when it's bright, sunny conditions, and it's calm out. Those put out a lot of flash without a lot of vibration, but when it's got some chop in the water or it's a little bit cloudy out, that's when I break out the Double Indiana Blade.
Color-wise, white spinnerbait, white trailer. I'll start off with gold blades. And that usually is all you need. If you are getting bass that are following it and not committing to it or they're short-striking, change the blade color to silver, and that usually gets them to commit. Just that little bit of a change will usually work. If that still isn't getting them to commit, then I'll go to a different color trailer like a chartreuse trailer, and that's all it usually takes. But that quick retrieve, here's the thing, man, you got to hold on tight to your rod, because when they hit it, there is no question. They try to kill it. They want to rip it right out of your hands. So you better be ready. I mean, I've actually had some strikes where I wasn't ready, and that rod almost came out of my hand. They hit it that hard. So be ready for it. It's exciting.
Jerkbaits are also a smallie favorite, particularly when they're aggressive. This really actually narrows down your choice when they're aggressive because you don't want to be using those deep-diving suspending jerkbaits right now because they're designed to be fished slower, typically when the water is colder, when the bass aren't as aggressive. Those work great for that. But right now when they're super aggressive, you want those shallow-diving floater-style jerkbaits, like a Rapala number 11, old standby, been around for decades, and there's good reason for it. It works, works really well. All you do is you cast it out there, let it sit for a couple of seconds, maybe up to five seconds or so, and then pop, pop, pop. Let it get in, and just pause it for a second. Then pop, pop, pop, pop. Pause it for a second.
Again, aggressive big fish. So here you don't want it to rise all the way up to the surface and let it set again. I don't give it that long of a pause. I give it a long enough pause so it starts to float up, and then I start popping it again. That little change in direction, that little pause, now instead of going forward, it's floating upwards and then resuming that again. Those are key points when usually you get a strike. So you don't really have to let it pause for too long. Just pop, pop, pop, let it pause, pop, pop, pop. And matter of fact, you can actually just pop it all the way back. Cast it and just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop as you're reeling. Just keep pop, pop, pop, pop. And that oftentimes just that quick cadence all the way back to the boat, it's dipping, it's diving, it's going up, it's being really erratic under the water, and that drives smallies crazy. So there's really not a whole lot to it in terms of trying to impart some other kind of weird action or different types of retrieves.
Now, you can fish this over points, over rocky flats where you've got some scattered weeds, scattered chunk rocks even better, where there's a transition. So you go from, like, riprap, which riprap, by the way, is a really good area to fish these, but where you have transition between large boulders to chunk rock or to gravel or maybe even from gravel to pea gravel or to muddy banks, those changes in those transition areas are really good areas. I'll go along a bank, for example, looks pretty the same. And then I'll notice, hey, suddenly we've got...maybe some rocks have fallen in the water or something like that. That is where I'll target. That transition or those changes on the banks, those are the places to target with these baits.
Now, if you're in a lake that's got a lot of weeds and the smallies are in it, then an alternative is to use a weedless soft plastic jerkbait, like a fluke, a Zoom Fluke. You can rig those Texas style because these other jerkbaits, they've got those exposed treble hooks, and they can get tangled up in the weeds. But with a weedless-style soft plastic, you can work that over the top of weeds. Actually, let it sink down a little bit of the weeds. Work it a little bit slower. It doesn't have a lot of noise. These don't have rattles in them. So you just kind of pop, pop, pop, and it'll sashay, sashay. It'll dip. It'll dive. So just pop and pop and pop just to give it that...here's this erratic action. Let it stop for a minute. Let it pause, sink into the weeds, and pop it back out. Smallies will annihilate. They're sitting in those weeds, or if they maybe do it right along a weedline where they're patrolling the outer weedline, especially if that weedline's got a hard bottom, right on the edge of that weedline, that's where the smallies like to patrol those type of weed edges. Bring that fluke over it, and, boom, yeah, you'll catch a lot of fish doing that. So definitely jerkbaits.
The next bait is lipless crankbaits. One of my favorites for fishing for aggressive smallies, anytime the water temp is above 50 degrees, I'll break out a lipless crankbait. Half-ounce, that's really the standard. So if you're starting out, you don't need to buy a whole bunch of different colors, different sizes. Half-ounce, chrome with a blue back or chrome with a black back, that's my standard. Sometimes I'll go with a brown crawdad color, and then, again, in the fall time, I will use anything with chartreuse on it, like a firetiger pattern, basic colors. But when they're aggressive, the retrieve is very simple. You cast out, and you can cast these things out a million-dollar mile. I mean, they go really far, right? There's not much resistance to them, so you can get them way out there and just bring it back at a clipping pace. Not necessarily burning it back just under the surface, but bring it back at a rapid pace so they just... [vocalization] come through the water. They got rattles in them. They make a lot of noise, a lot of commotion.
That calls bass from all sorts of depths. It doesn't matter if the water is clear or muddied up. If they're aggressive, they're going to find it, and they're going to whack it. I like to bring it over riprap. I like to bring it over, again, those points that we talked about before, any points that go down into deeper water, not long tapering, but sharp points like 45-degree points. If you got any boulders or sunken timber on them, even better, outside weedlines, and you can bring it over the top of weed beds too. You can bring it over the top of them, and sometimes that works really well.
One variation to that retrieve is you can give it a little pause. Give it a little pause, let it sink down a little bit, then resume your retrieve. That change of action often triggers a strike. A little bit harder to do if you're bringing it on top of weed beds. I wouldn't do that because sometimes those treble hooks can get down into those weeds and get fouled, so you don't want to pause it then. But anywhere else, yeah, just bring it right along. If you're not getting a bite, give it a little pause. If a bass is following it and suddenly it pauses, they've got to react to it. They're either going to bite it, or they're going to turn away. Typically, they bite it, especially if they're aggressive. So that's a good way of triggering a bite.
But, yeah, and you can use the kind that got rattles. There's some that don't have rattles. Have a variety of those lipless crankbaits handy. And some of them, they make them out of, like, a soft plastic, which emits even a different type of vibration. They're not used as often either, so that might trigger some bass that maybe have seen a lot of these baits. So give it a go. You'll be surprised.
Now, the last bait is a squarebill. Squarebills, they will dive a little bit deeper than the spinnerbaits. They're deeper than the topwaters. The cool thing about them, hence their name, squarebill, they've got a flat bill up front, and what that enables them to do is when you bring it over, say, a branch, something woody, it'll square up to it, and then it will roll over the top like this, straight up. And the body protects the hooks that are dangling back here, protects the hooks from getting hooked in the wood, okay? A roundbill-type crankbait will roll over, and then the hooks can get embedded, but a squarebill just squares straight up to it and goes right over it like that, okay?
For that reason, don't size up on the hooks. Some guys will do that. They like to just automatically go a size bigger when they buy a crankbait, but not with these. You don't want to size larger because that increases the likelihood of it getting fouled up, which kind of defeats the purpose. The cool thing about a squarebill is that you can work it through those woody areas and through stumps, things like that where smallies are hiding. You can also bring it along a riprap, and it gives a unique deflection off the hard rocks or scattered boulders, a big flat that's got some scattered boulders. It deflects off it differently than the other types of baits. Again, I would go the same kind of colors that we've talked about before, those baitfish colors, particularly shad, perch, bluegill, chrome with black back, chrome with blue back, and then, of course, during the fall throw in some chartreuse in there, like a firetiger, and you're golden.
Working back pretty quickly, again, this is a fast pace back when the bass, again, are aggressive, so a fairly quick pace works really well. I like the balsa type or the type of plastic squarebills that are plastic, and they'll float up, right? So if I stop it, it changes direction just like those jerkbaits. It stops, changes direction, then you resume that retrieve. Those changes and erratic behavior often triggers a bite. So stick with those two types of cadences and those colors, and you can catch a lot of aggressive bass. So with these five lures, you are likely to catch more and larger smallies when they're aggressive. I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks, visit bassresource.com.
