By Nick Simonson

Springtime is smallmouth time, and as the waters warm up and bronzebacks stage for their spawn in late April and early May, targeting them provides a welcome challenge. Upping your odds with some choice soft plastics helps better connect with these fish this time of year and provides an arsenal that often works later into the season and summer as well.  What follows are four soft plastics that no brown bass angler should be without as the trolling motor drops for the first time this season or the shorelines open up to those first early casts. 

1. Tube Tactics.  Soft plastic tubes are a bass angler’s bread and butter for both species in spring, but adjusting things slightly for smallmouth helps connect more often when a bronzeback picks up a bait.  Where four- and five-inch tubes are the norm for bucketmouths, dropping down a bit in the size range makes for a more compact package for smallies in spring.  Consider utilizing tubes in sizes ranging from three to four inches, with a number of companies making shorter tubes specifically for spring finesse fishing for these gamefish.  Whether Texas rigged on wide gap hooks in sizes from 1/0 to 3/0 with a bullet weight, or set up on an insert jig, these core plastic offerings stick it to spring smallies.  Go with natural colors like black, green, pumpkin and root beer, but have a couple light patterns in salt-and-pepper or pearl to offer up as well.

2. Stunted Sticks.  And speaking of sticks, soft plastic stick baits like the Yum Dinger and Yamamoto Senko are go-to offerings for smallies, especially on those post frontal days where a more subtle bait is needed to trigger a bite.  Four-inch sticks are effective for smallmouth bass, and work well when Texas rigged, but perhaps shine best when both ends of the bait can give out a bit of a wiggle on a wacky rig with a circle hook in sizes 1 to 1/0 run right through the middle of the bait.  The latter also allows the fish to pick up the bait and run with it, while not resulting in gill or gut-hooking for catch-and-release angling with less mortality.  Browns, reds, and greens seem to pay big dividends, but don’t forget bright offerings like Merthiolate, orange or natural hues tipped with pink or chartreuse at one end.

3. Glad for Shad.  Baits with a minnow profile are also a springtime draw for smallmouth bass, and they can be cast, paused, twitched, and allowed to drop right in those areas of structure where bronzebacks are setting up for spring.  Options like the Salty Sinkin’ Shad by Case Plastics rigged weightless or the Zoom Super Fluke with a small bullet sinker in front will give off that impression of a wounded baitfish and an easy meal that spring fish don’t have to expend a whole lot of energy for.  In both four and five-inch sizes, minnow and shad style baits are a great addition to any smallmouth tackle binder in spring.

4. Stuck in Your Craw.  An early eat for smallies which remains on the dinner table all open water season is the crayfish.  That’s why their imitators in a variety of craw, beaver and bug creations with claws, paddles, legs, and other odd appendages are so vital in the soft plastic collection of any bass angler.  Yum’s Crawbug or Googan Baits’ Krackin Craw are lifelike imitators of these freshwater crustaceans, while Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver and Missile Baits’ D-Bomb provide a more general imitator with that vibe of being something edible.  In sizes from three to four inches and rigged on a bass jig as a dressing or on a wide gap hook with a bullet weight, these craw imitators get the job done.  Utilize craw-specific colors like greens, browns, blues, purples and oranges to match the hatch and what’s on the menu for smallies this spring.

Snag a few bags of your favorite soft plastics, and keep a few of these suggestions in mind as you stock up for spring.  Rig them up and find your favorite stretch of smallie structure to explore ahead of the spawn and odds are you’ll connect with that big brown bass you’re looking for.

Simonson is the lead writer and editor of Dakota Edge Outdoors.

Featured Photo: The Four Horsemen of the Basspocalypse!  Four must-have soft plastic baits for springtime smallmouth bass are (top to bottom) tubes, sticks, minnow baits and craws. Simonson Photo.