As the water temps on the river are slowly rising my mind is starting to drift towards bass fishing. I love to fish smallies and was wondering what are your favorite early spring smallie lures. I have always done great on hair jigs and small yo-zuri cranks worked very slow. Would be great to hear what others are using to catch them early in the year.
Greg
3″ Pwr Tube 1/16 oz Jig
I’ve done pretty well on early cold water smallies using a 4″ Husky Jerk. Twitch, pause, twitch-twitch, pause…
small Shad-raps 4’s & 5’s and small husky jerks.
Good old 5″ grub on 3/16 oz jig head. Can swim it or work the bottom.
1: Swimming a 5″ Yamamoto grub
2: Jerkbaits – Suspending Rogue or an X-rap – colors = clown or silver with a blue or black back
a smallie special with 101 pork.
jc
Lucky Craft Pointer jerked as hard as you can, moving the bait 4 to 6 feet at a time. Those who have not seen a jerkbait worked this way look at you like “what is that idiot doing” Anyone who has fished smallies on the Bay of Green Bay knows just what I am talking about. I will destroy a good reel each spring jerking this hard, but the smallies love it. 
Carl
i was just wondering where i should look to find early smallmouth? i have been wondering for awhile. Do i fish rocks or what? Current or no current? It has been perplexing me!!! 
Depth and rocks are a good combo. Up the Wiscons usually produces for me..theres a few good banks with some good chunk rock, i always get them on the transition areas between chunk and gravel and slack water and current. they’ll be found in water with some current usually in spring i’ve found.
My lures: Smithwick suspending Rogue- blue or black back, silver sides
Rapala Husky Jerk-Silver or Bone
Bomber Fat Free Shad-silver
4 or 5″ soft stickbait, wacky rigged with #1 or 1/0 gamakatsu octopus hook. Usually pearl with pepper, carolina pumpkin with neon tail works for the YUM dinger line. same colors for ISG willostiks, senko’s, kinami flash, etc..junebug too
3″ tube, black/blue or junebug
Rascal 200 series firetiger
3/16oz ball head, 4″ white grub, 1/16oz in slower moving water for a slower sink rate
Bomber I can’t believe you spilled the beans on the crappie minnow! It can be deadly dragging it behind the boat while fishing w/ the kicktails (if there legal in your area).
You do realize that some tournaments have banned the kicktail due to the high catch rates 
that ad was the funniest thing i’ve seen in a long time! although i did end up buying 3,000 of them because they might be banned!!
banjo minnow..hands down..by far..one of my buds used to be exclusively banjo minnow when he caught a half dozen pike on them..that reminds me, that same trip, i had a 14″ smallie get engulfed boatside by a 45″ muskie that i ended up landing. Little chartruese wally diver. ever since that close call, i havent picked up a wally diver since.
I must be an idiot, but what exactly is a kicktail???
A Kicktail is this junk lure. I made the mistake of buying it to “try it out”. It’s cheap and I don’t think it lasted a dozen casts before it broke.
Slop bought a Kick-tail!!!
I never knew that the gimic bait in Bassmaster was called that. I thought they had a different name for that? Anyway,thanks
Quote:
Slop bought a Kick-tail!!!
Rumor was he was trying to get on their pro-staff. 
Ron
That was below the belt… , but I can’t stop laughing….
Haters…lol 
Quote:
Slop bought a Kick-tail!!!
He’s the first person I’ve ever heard of that got hooked into buying one of those! 
Congrats Slop! 
Rumor on the street is that thee’ old kick tail is so lethal that they will be banning it in ALL tournaments…!!!
I was waiting for the “some” to “all” ruling.
I guess it’s time to bust out the helicopter lure. They haven’t banned those yet, have they?
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