Your TOP THREE smallie lures ??

[ksdog]

Just got into smallie fishing yesterday. Will be fishing a river which is about 2ft to 6ft. Very few of those deeper holes. Flow is generally pretty slow and clarity is mid range. Have no idea what productive type lures would be for smallies in this situation. Your help please...

[ssaamm]

In the heat of summer my favorite river lures are 1) Skitter Pop or Pop-R style surface lures 2)Rapala Husky Jerks, and 3) Rebel Teeny deep diving Crawdad or Crayfish in rocky areas. When it's hot and the fish are active these are my go-to lures. You might even pick up some bonus northerns, walleyes, and a rare catfish. Knock 'em dead. Good luck!

[river rat316]

Ahh lets see... Is your flow rocky? undercut banks? what type of cover does it have? Try senkos wacky rigged it works just about anywhere, tubes are also a good choice, when the smallies are feeding on baitfish white tubes work and when theyre feeding on crawfish try and closely match the color of your craw's. One of my goto topwaters is a heddon tinytorpedo, then theres the old stand by buzzbaits in white or chartruese, dont forget to try some spinnerbaits also, people have good luck on full size spinnerbaits in prespawn (now).

One thing to remember is smallies love to sit on current breaks deep or shallow, and also love to hang out under, cut in banks, imho you should focus on location over what bait your using, try throwing a spinner bait in likely looking locations and trying different retrieve speeds till you find what they want if you cant buy a bite on a spinner bait throw a tube up river texposed with a splitshot shoved inside the body, letting it drift down with the current and keep the line semi-tight to keep the bait heading down river instead of tumbling down river and watch your line for strikes, if you feel or see anything different set the hook! you can do the same thing with a weightless wacky rigged senko and if they dont go after one of those three then they aint there!

[Cooter]

My all time favorite for smallies on rivers is a #3 blue fox spinner with silver blade and white hair on the treble. Tip a hook with a 3" chart. twister tail.

[beeflover]

1. dark colored worm

2. white or green pumpkin tubes

3. spinnerbait

4. helicopter lures

5. bionic minnow

[Lew]

1. Plastic 2. Plastic 3. Did I mention plastic? My favorite is the reaper. Check joe-bucher HSOforum, he has a great smallie video featuring a number of smallies caught on a reaper. My number 2 choice is a tube bait. Number 3 is a twister tail. They can be fished slow in cold conditions or fast in warm conditions. They are easy to use. No foul-ups. Can be adjusted with light weight jigs or heavier jigs to best fit your water conditions. Also can be fishing easily in current or in lake conditions. Why do I have those crankbaits in my tacklebox?

[bmc]

I've grown real partial to the Berkley Power minnows in the two tone gray 5" model rigged on a worm hook. I also like using a devil's horse dying flutter topwater bait, used to kill 'em on the river back in high school. I may get tarred and feathered for this, but large leeches on a #6-8 hook with a small split shot up the line a couple feet. I usually fish a very clear lake and they are down right finicky sometimes. Oh yeah, the Gitzit tube jigs are awesome too.

Brian

[Metroguy99]

1. Crawdad colored small size (?) shad rap or jointed shad rap

2. Crawdad plastics

3. Smaller Storm plastic minnow swin baits. Not sure of the exact name.

[st.crioxfishin]

-white tube rigged texas style, but wieghtless

-white, or chartruse buzzbait

-silver/blue zara spook

-black red tube texas rigged

-#9 floating rapala, any color/match the baitfish

[Kevin Turner]

The type of river dictates my choices. I seldom throw cranks in the river. They cost to much to loose and I don't like going back to unsnag.

1) Jig & Pig

2) Buzz Bait

3) Tube

[LEECH21]

1. Crayfish colored jointed shad-rap

2. Husky jerks (when the smallies are more neutral)

3. White buzzbaits

[HawgTide]

White Buzzbaits

Senko's

Crawfish colored Crankbaits

But that's only if I had to limit it to 3. 3/8oz spinnerbait is tough to beat at times, and so is the tube and so are other plastics...

[searchingfor55'']

Top Water-Zara Spook

Cranking-White Spinner Bait

Jigging-Power Bait Tubes

[Ray Esboldt]

In shallow water rivers I like:

1) Pop-R or some other blurper.

2) Buzz Bait.

3) A yellow, green, or white grub cast to bank and reeled back to the boat on an 1/8th or 3/16th oz. jig.

I've never had much success using weighted plastics in shallow rivers. They wash out of the stike zone pretty fast. They're fine with minimal current, but I think you're better off with something that's on the move back to where it came from.

[sami0115]

on the Mississippi i would use:

1. Green Pumpkin 3" tube

2. brown & green jig-n-pig

3. white spinnerbait

[poutpro]

plastics is by far my favorite aritficial lure to use, but when it gets warm enough that frogs start coming out, go out and catch a couple dozen, and you will be amazed at how good they work to catch smallies. just hook them through both lips and vertically jig them over holes. where i'm from you can't beat this tactic.

[Jim Hudson]

For the smallies I fish... Number one would be a Husky Jerk and or Smithwick Suspending Rogue... Number two would be tubes and or Yum Dingers/Senkos... Number three would be a jig/plastic combo...

And a close forth would be smaller hot n tots... for some reason these smallies up here love them when they are shallow...

[Matt Breuer]

White Berkley Power Tube

Salmo Boxer in Red Crawdad

Split shot rig, plain red hook, tipped with a leech

[DougSpringBay]

Bass Pro Shops Magnum Flippin Tube Green Pumpkin/ Black pepper

Rebel Pop'R

Senko

Zara Spook--- Okay, so thats four. It is my #1 Hawg smallie post spawn and summer bait.

Doug

[Captain B.R.K]

1) Green to light green tube jigs w/weight inserts

2) Anything top water....one I use has a little spinning

blade to the back (can't think of the name of that

company?!?)

3) Orange jig head with flickle colors in a 2" or 3" grub

body

[dan sexton]

1)Zoom "Fluke" rigged two ways a) weight-less on a 6" leader w/ swivel on one end and an owner xx wide gap 1/0 hook. I only nose hook the fluke, like a drop shot. 1/16oz-1/8 oz, 2/0 hook dart head with hook exposed as well.

2)Team Diawa "TD Minnow" rip bait

3) Yammamoto twin tail grub/ Yammamoto twin skirt (I always very my color combinations this way. I combine these baits on an Owner football jig using 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 3/4, and 1 ounce. Early in the season you can't beat the 1 ounce in the shallows because it falls so fast they can't think about biting....the attack out of reflex!

For line on these techniques I use 10 pound "Seaguar" fluorocarbon line for the fluke and jig. 12 pound on the rip bait (mostly because it is pretty expensive, $18 or so) and when using 1/2 oz or heavier jigs.

I use MH rod on the jig, M on the fluke and rip. I use baitcasters most of the time, however, I will use spinning on rip and fluke if fishing docks (skipping) or windy conditions because they are so lightweight.

Catch the next Minnasota Record Smallie FM junkies!!! It would be nice to see one the Bass forum guys do this.

Dan

[cheektowaga]

1. 4" power grub drop shotted (purpleish/brown color)

2. Rapala's broken shad rap (crawfish colors) !Caught my 20.5 inch on this

3. Poppers early AM

[Gus]

1. Rebel's crawfish

2. Slip bobber with leech or crawler

3. white colored Glass Shadrap.