If you are a smallmouth bass fisherman you have probably tried your skills at the aggression that is the smallmouth bass. Pound for pound, many anglers insist that they pull and fight harder than their cousins the largemouth. They just have a really bad attitude. What they lack in reputation certainly makes up for a good fight. Because of this, the best smallmouth bass lures are a highly debated topic among fishermen. There are no right or wrong answers either, many are effective. You just need to make sure you use the right one at the right time for best results.
Swimbaits – As Real As An Angler Can Get It
Swimbaits are extremely realistic and are more for tempting fish once you have found them. They are not good search and find baits at all, but they provide some of the best trickery an angler has in his arsenal. The biggest fish in the water will travel longer distances to hit a swimbait more so than any other lure in the box. These are the trophy seeker’s favorite lures.
This is especially true the clearer the water is. If you can see fifteen to twenty feet down below the water’s surface, make a real looking swimbait your very first choice. Choosing a hard or soft swimbait normally depends on what temperature the water is and fishing with swimbaits will help you get better. If the water is five to forty degrees, throwing a soft plastic one is usually preferred in contrast to choosing a hard one.
When the water is in the mid-to-upper forties and anything above that, a hard swimbait would be the best option at that point. They provide unmatched effectiveness because the way they look and move is almost identical to the real thing. Not only does this pose an identity problem, but it also makes it irresistible on many occasions because they don’t get a chance to pass it up.
Keitech Swing Impact soft plastic swimbait with a ribbed body and a smoky Shad color. Our Top Pick: If you want to learn how to fish swimbaits, consider trying a Keitech Swing Impact paddle tail. It has a ribbed body that displaces a decent amount of water.
Crankbaits for Smallmouth Bass
Crankbaits make our top spot because you can use them for power fishing. This means that you can cover water very quickly to find where the fish are. Crankbaits are a type of wooden or plastic plug that rattle and swim erratically. The crankbait is a reaction lure. This means that they irritate fish into striking. We love them because they are so versatile.
This is in warm water, cold water, rain or sun. You can start fishing crankbaits by casting them or trolling them. They work for any season of the year. However, I will say they tend to work better when the water is warmer and in seasons like summer and spring. Although this is the case, you can catch huge fish on crankbaits even when the water is half frozen. Your color selection is important on a crankbait. Although they don’t bite it because it looks like food, having a realistic color makes it more likely. They are more likely to bite something that looks like food halfway then not at all.
Howies Pro Tubes – Great Gobie Imitations
Soft plastic tubes have been the mainstay for smallie fishermen for a very long time. Tubes are versatile, effective, and don’t have a size limit of what you can catch on them. Tubes can be used to imitate gobies, crawfish, baitfish, or any other critter. A tube has a long straight body that is rounded on the end. Not crappie tubes either, bass tubes. You could fish them on jig heads, shaky heads, screw-lock hooks, Texas Rigs, Carolina Rigs, and even drop shot rigs.
Tubes can be impregnated with salt to make fish hold on longer. They even come in different sizes so you can flush out the trophies. It is hard to beat a tube in effectiveness if you are looking to mimic crawfish of any species. You can bottom bounce them for aggressive blow-ups. Tubes reach their peak performance during the fall as it transitions into the winter solstice. Although this is the case, it is also one of the best warm water lures out there. The soft plastic skirts at the end of the lure make for some great action in the water. The smallmouth bass just love these things.
You can vary the depth they will go by changing your sinker weight. Try fishing them slower for the best results or try some vertical jigging. If you are in the market for some awesome tubes, look no further than Howies Pro Tubes.They are our favorite ones out of all of the tubes we have tried. They are impregnated with salt too so they off put the pure plastic taste when bitten. We tend to venture more towards these because they are durable.
Spinners – Fun to Fish
A spinner is a type of fishing lure that has a rotating blade. In saying this, many bait types have a rotating blade. Examples of different spinners include the original spinnerbait, the buzzbait, prop and propeller lures, tailspin, and basic spinners like a Roostertail or Mepps Aglia Spinner. Depending on which one you use, you will need to fish them in different ways. The best spinnerbaits have multiple blades. The blades hit and bump into each other as they rotate around. Pretty much every variety works excellently on a moderate speed, straight, retrieve. Since there is such a wide array of spinning options out there, the angler must experiment on which one to use and when. Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits work well in most situations while things like propeller topwaters and tailspins are very situational for them to be effective. We have decided on a spinnerbait as the top dog for the spinning category. The Booyah Blade is a great spinnerbait with two blades and a thin wire arm which both allow for maximum vibration in the water. It has a razor-sharp hook and a very durable skirt that hides the hook well. It also comes in a lot of colors to match any conditions you want to fish in. The blades bump into each other as they spin. This creates a clicking noise that can be used to find it much easier in dirty water as you hug the bank. They are one of the best Largemouth lures too. The skirts on this spinner are very durable. You can easily add a soft plastic to the sharp hook to make it much more attractive as well as increase the profile.
For 25 years Green Bay Trophy Fishing has guided and provided helpful information to anglers in and around Door County. We are some of the most experienced fishing guides in Green Bay and pride ourselves on being experts on everything related to fishing in the area.
If you are interested in booking a smallmouth bass fishing charter, you can view our rates or contact us here.