Smallmouth Bass

When I Lived in Connecticut, I'd rip em on a crawfish colored, shallow running Bandit.

You can use pretty much anything that you would use for LM.

Spinner baits, crank baits, rapalas, tubes.

They do have an affinity for crawfish though.

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Here where i fish on the Buffalo River

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I spent 3 days there trying to catch them. I thought a slider worm on a jig head would be the ticket. My buddy kicked my butt with a very small Rebel crawfish crankbait. Not color, but the one that actually looks like a small crawfish. They killed that thing.

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If i were in bozeman i'd be putting up the traditional gear forget bass and start fly fishing for trout.... you are in one of the best places in the world to do it

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yes

then you go into whether or not the trout/bass are naturally produced or hatchery fish

then you are going to have to use pellet bait

I have fished for Smallies in MO and I agree they tend to be stacked in the deeper holes on moving water. They will congregate around chunk rock and boulders and large wood but dont seem to be as attracted to grass or thick dense wood as Largemouth are.

They are so explosive when the hit topwater I cant help but fish for them with tiny torpedos, mini sized hula poppers, and the small floating rapala minnows in in natural colors. I know some guys that swear by small buzzbaits and throw them almost exclusively usually in white or yellow.

For sub surface, I have more luck with the inline spinners like roster tails than I do with the R shaped more traditional spinner baits. I can catch them on H&H spinners too though. I have caught them on crankbaits and the Norman Baby N and Deep Baby N are my favorites. As mentioned rebel crawfish work well too.

For working the bottom, I like to keep it cheap due to the places they live. You will lose a bunch of weigths and jig heads to chunk rock crevices. I use unpainted round head jigs with light wire hooks and rig them with 2-3" grubs, tubes, or crawfish. Unlike largemouth worm fishing I rarely let the bait sit on bottom for smallmouth. I keep it moving and hunting. For colors I use black, yellow, white, orange, and reds but stay away from blues and purples as they dont seem to work as well for smallies.

Live bait can be great also for smallies. weightless baitholder hooks with a tail hooked crawfish from the same stream are deadly. Just cast it upstream of structure and hold on as the bait swings into the hot spot. Worms and minnows work ok too but I have better luck with grasshoppers, hellgramites, and leeches caught locally.

Catching them on fly rod is a blast too. 4/5 weight with a weight forward floating line and 6 to 9 ft tapered leader in 8 lb test should be good. Wooly buggers, light clouser minnows, rabbit fur leeches, and spun deer hair divers and poppers, and foam pencil poppers are all great.

Good luck.

No problem. I hope it helps. The more people that enjoy the outdoors the more power we have to preserve our rights.


Also FWIW I use a light or ultra light spinning combo with a 6 ft rod and 6 to 8 lb trilene XL mono for smallies.

I have lived in Arkansas for about a year now, and I have couple holes I do well catching smallmouth. Early in morning they will kill a popper, and when you can catch anything on topwaters that's always my preference. Ive caught them on poppers as big as a Magnum Yellow Magic, but I perfer the miniture pop r's After the sun comes up,and they move into deeper holes, I usually move to a small jig or a texas rigged speedcraw.