Smallmouth Bas

[Early]

Picking brains & soliciting opinions here: What are your favorite smallmouth bass baits...natural/live??...artificial/lures?

Thanks,

Early

[Pygmy]

My #1 lure for smallies is a simple hair jig ... I use mostly 1/16 and 1/8 oz. on 4 or 6 lb. test. I tie my own. Cast it out and swim it back along the bottom.

Any color is fine as long as it is brown or black....LOL....

This lure does not exactly copy anything, but it SUGGESTS many different favorite bass foods, such as hellgramites,crayfish, stone catfish or other small fish, and leeches...They also work well on walleyes and most species of panfish, such as rock bass and yellow perch.

Another lure that works well is a plastic twister grub in either motor oil or Pumpkinseed..2" 3" and 4" all work, but my standby is 3" on a 1 1/16 or 1/8 oz. jighead.

Many live baits work well, including minnows, crayfish,leeches and nightcrawlers...Don't gob your crawlers on the hook like you would for bullheads..Hook them once right in the nose and be prepared to feed the bass a couple feet of line before you set the hook.

A local favorite river bait is stone catfish, or tonies as they are called locally..Hooked through the lips they are deadly on river bass, although I have never had good luck with them in the lakes.

The all time champion bait for smallies, either in streams, rivers or lakes is the hellgramite, locally called "dobson"... Fish them on a jig head, generally 1 1/16 or 1/8 oz. with a #4 or #2 hook.. I break the head off and run the dobson on the jighead just as you would hook up a twister tail. Absolute dynamite bait for bass and all species of panfish..Hooked this way on a jighead, you can often catch 8 or 10 fish on a single bait... I like to drift fish them in a lake ( I fish Keuka most often) in water from 10-30 feet deep on the outside edges of weedbeds or dropoffs..

A light tackle approach works best with smallies..My standard rig is an open faced spinning reel spooled with 6 lb. test mono on a lightweight 6 1/2 foot Fenwick graphite..

Edited June 21, 2012 by Pygmy

[BizCT]

Sawbellies (alewife)

[Culvercreek hunt club]

I have had different success depending on the water and time of year.

For natual and Smallies I go with crayfish and minnows in that order

drifting and jigging vertical I use the jigs as pygmy said and tip with a ball of crawler.

I love topwater and early morning I have had them rise on deep side of weedbeds in 20' of water.

Zarra spook(silver/black, frog) and Fenwick darter (blue/silver, gold) but all time favorite is a creekchub crippled minnow (if you can find any at yard sales)

Spinners of a smaller size rolling over submerged cover or rock piles. Brown/orange, Chart/white. Always seem to have best luck with willow leaf blades

for crank baits my favorite is Rapala shadrap in crawfish color

softs in a carolina rig are usually purple or pumpkinseed in a powerworm or in the spring a lizzard.

[Early]

My favorites: Live bait...Hands down, best natural bait for smallmouth bass is stonecats! For me, best artificial lures have been either a Mepps spinner or a bucktail streamer in crawdad colors.

My wife and I host an annual late-summer fish fry....fish is almost always smallmouth bass...caught on stonecats.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Ok. I'll bite. wht the heck is a stone cat. I have never heard or seen anything like that around the areas I fish. Where do you get them?

[Early]

A stonecat is a little river catfish that can be found under stones near or in river riffles. I learned how to collect them (by "stunning") and fish with them well over 50 years ago. Still, today, they are my smallmouth bait of choice. (And, interestingly, in the rivers that I fish, the only walleyes I have caught have been caught on stonecats.)

[Pygmy]

I believe the proper term for them is "stone catfish" .. They are a small species of catfish found in rivers and streams. A 5 or 6 inch "tony" as they are called here is a huge one.. Most of them are from two to four inches... They are carmel colored and have black eyes and VERY sharp spines on thier pectoral and dorsal fins. If they stick you, the wound THROBS much more than a bullhead/channel cat sting..

In river fishing, if you want to catch the biggest smallie in the hole, hook a tony through the lips and drift him through.. They work very hard for you, wiggling every minute, but if you are not careful they will run your hook and line under a rock.. Some guys fish them under a bobber to keep them from reaching bottom.

I don't fish them much anymore, because I prefer to fish with artificials, but they are absolutely a great big bass bait in streams and walleyes love them too.

I have tried them in the Finger lakes for bass, and for whatever reason, they don't seem to work as well there as they do in rivers, possibly because they inhabit flowing water and are not present in the lakes..

[Early]

Nope....McClane's Standard lists them as "Stonecats". Whatever you call them, they are a superb smallmouth bass bait.

This talk of stonecats brings back memories....See my next post

[Pygmy]

Nope....McClane's Standard lists them as "Stonecats". Whatever you call them, they are a superb smallmouth bass bait.

This talk of stonecats brings back memories....See my next post

I yield to you, my friend...It seems that "stonecat" is the proper term..

Locally, I have never heard them referred to as anything but "tonys"...

On nearby Seneca Lake, I have heard fisherman talk about catching lake trout on "stonecats", but the baitfish they were using were actually sculpins.. There is a little restaurant on the east side of Seneca on 414 not too far north of Watkins Glen named the " Stonecat Cafe'". It has a drawing of a sculpin over the entrance.