Smallmouths like this sound in certain situations, too. I've made fair catches now on five different occasions on the upper Mississippi River. Logic might suggest that these rigs would work best in dingy water. I haven't done that much experimenting in this situation, though. My success has been with the water at normal levels and clear in late summer. In one instance, I saw a smallmouth, attracted by the clicking noise, pull off a rock and swim 30 feet apparently in search of the noise, then eat the leech that was hanging 2 feet below the float.

I've also caught smallmouths during postspawn on famous Mille Lacs Lake, Minnesota, on two occasions when the fish weren't going well on more traditional approaches like casting grubs, straight topwaters, and jerkbaits. These fish came from along the deep edges of shallow rock shoals. In one of those situations I used leeches below the float. In the other, I used a finesse-style hair jig traditionally used in Float 'n' Fly presentations. On yet another occasion, I filmed a short TV segment using a Cajun Thunder rig to catch smallmouths and walleyes stacked against a wideward shoreline. Then again, I fished the combination once for pike during late summer, trying to attract them to a suspended chub--on this occasion without success. I'm certain this will work on occasions, though, for English anglers occasionally use noisy floats to attract pike.

For smallmouths and walleyes, by the way, I use the same sort of long-cast rigging popular for estuary redfish; that is, a 7-foot medium-action, medium-power rod, with a regular walleyes-size spinning reel like the Pflueger Trion 4730, loaded with 10-pound-test Berkley FireLine. I used circle hooks to fish the leeches and never missed a smallmouth on two trips.

Make a long cast, let the rig settle, then when using it in conjunction with bait, give the float a modest chug to get the rig to do its thing. With a small shot about 6 inches above the leech, the leech will raise up and then swim and swivel-hip it back down. You can be much more aggressive fishing a jig below this rigging. I know smallmouths are going to eat up an aggressively fished jig presentation on occasions. Just know it.

And that's where it stands now. Too many freshwater fish, too many situations, and me with too little time.