Soft Plastic Minnows work excellent for smallmouth bass. There are so many good ones to choose from that give anglers a chance to target bass with a minnow imitation.
What Sizes are Best for Smallmouth Bass Fishing?
The smaller 3 inch minnows are awesome when you want to finesse it up and get lots of action. The 4 and 5 inch minnows will catch bigger smallmouth bass on average, but the 5 inch minnows will usually get you a lot less bites than the 3 to 3.5 inch minnow baits.
How to Rig Minnow Baits
You can rig these baits a variety of ways. With the smaller minnow baits, you can go with a simple ball style jighead or a variety of the more popular jighead styles on the market. With the larger jerkbait minnows, anglers do well with swimbait hooks, a weighted Texas rig and a weightless Texas rig.
Best Techniques
Hop Them Along the Bottom
You can us a jighead or drop shot rig to hop these baits along the bottom. Just work them along with some pauses and you can catch a lot of bass this way.
Fish Them Slowly Through the Water Column
You can catch a lot of smallmouth bass while working a soft plastic minnow bait slowly through the water column with a slight twitch or jerk and pause technique. Fish the baits slow and you’ll get a lot of bites as the bait falls slowly through the water column.
Shaky Technique
The shaky technique works great for drawing strikes from smallmouth bass that are not in the mood to chase a faster moving bait. Minnow baits in the 3 to 4 inch range look amazing on a drop shot rig with the shaky technique.
Jerkbait Retrieve
Soft minnow baits look great with a jerkbait retrieve. Use some of the minnows in the 4 to 5 inch range and work them with an erratic jerkbait retrieve with some pauses and you’ll get bites.
Vertical Jig Them
From summer through fall, you can often find smallmouth bass in deeper water. A jighead and soft plastic minnow is a great setup for targeting smallmouth bass when they are deep. Get over a school of smallmouth bass and give this bait some action and you’ll get plenty of bites.
Dead Stick Them
Dead sticking can be effective when smallmouth bass are suspending out over deeper water. Use a minnow bait that is more realistic looking and you’ll catch more smallmouth bass with the dead sticking technique.
