Following cover, consider forage. If bass are tuned into one key forage type most of the time, select plastics that match the length and roughly mimic the profile of the natural. One overlooked prey is the leech. Smallies can’t resist a big mudflap leech. When nose-hooked and set below a float or on a drop-shot rig, imitation leeches from Berkley and FoodSource have saved many otherwise tough days.

Compare the relationships between smallmouths and shad in many reservoirs with the tie between smallies and gobies in many areas of the Great Lakes. Shad suspend in open water and gobies can’t (no swim bladder), so they remain pinned to structure. Two different species with very different habits, yet it’s no wonder tubes are the first choice of many to imitate both.

Tubes are shaped like nothing in particular but everything in general, so they can become minnows, craws, nymphs, waterdogs, or anything else a smallmouth eats, depending on the color, size, shape, and presentation chosen. A tube can swim or suspend vertically. It can be dragged or hopped along bottom. But the first rule of selection is to roughly match the size and profile of the most prolific forage species.

If smallmouths are looking up and hitting baitfish, and the baitfish are predominantly 3 inches long, consider 3-inch tubes with white or cream bellies first. If the baitfish are fat and healthy, pick a fat, thick-walled tube, and so on. If smallmouths are looking down, try 4-inch tubes colored brown, green, amber, or black.

Having the right color selection of grubs, tubes, and other plastics is fine—but most days it does no good to have the right color if it’s the wrong size. Smallmouths that completely refuse 5-inch grubs might inhale 3-inch grubs of the same color, even though the reverse is often the case (5-inch grubs rule). Once the primary colors are identified in the systems you fish, gather every size and type of plastic available in those key shades.

When bass bump a plastic bait, assume it’s almost right. When pace manipulation fails, consider size and color. I always want to find out if a good bite can become an absolutely torrid bite. It’s a kind of curse. If smallies are eating a 5-inch pumpkinseed grub, I immediately switch to a related color, like green pumpkin or sand. I test 6 to 10 different baits, most of which won’t even be bumped.

Then I begin touching up the hottest baits with dabs of color using Spike-It pens, dyes, and paints. I periodically pick up the rod that delivered the original hot color to make certain the bite hasn’t died, then continue experimenting until I know which alterations bass are responding to best.

During a hot bite, smallies may bite every color, but most of the time one color or shape stands out, producing more bites than any other. And that color will, almost certainly, produce pretty consistently on that system under similar circumstances. Of course, if everyone is throwing that color its effectiveness declines, so it pays to own as many “deadly but rare” colors as possible.

Contrary to conventional thinking, the best time to experiment with color, style, and size is not during a tough bite but during a hot bite. On tough days, throw only those colors that survive such tests of fire.