Must-Have Plastics

In highly subjective order of importance, you should have on hand: grubs, tubes, finesse worms, action-tail worms, soft sticks, soft jerks, craws, creatures, lizards, and a few oddballs (leeches, in particular; sometimes gobies). The order may change from one body of water to another. And some styles not on that list may be needed on certain bodies of water with unique predator-prey relationships.

When selecting plastics for smallmouths, the most effective sizes tend to range from 2 to 6 inches in length. The best smallmouth worms, by me, are 4 to 5 inches long. Cutting a 6- or 7-inch worm down to 5 inches can be productive when the drop rate needs to slow down, thanks to the bulkier body of the larger worm.

A 6- or 7-inch finesse worm often is the best choice for wacky-rigging. But a 5-inch Persuader Curly Tail excels for swimming around cover, while a 5-inch Berkley Power Shaky Worm is perfect for shakin’ (using the rod tip to vibrate a dropping or hovering jigworm), and a 5-inch Zoom U-Tail works best for jigworming or swimming through open water.

Most 4-inch worms I use are finesse-style worms, presented Texas-style on a thin-wire offset hook—sometimes with a split shot a foot or so ahead, sometimes with a small cone sinker at the nose of the bait.

A finesse worm can be as versatile as a tube. It’s a drop-shotting, wacky-rigging, jig-worming, Mojo-rigging, Carolina-rigging multi-threat that saves room in your tacklebox from the excesses of having specific tools for all those methods on hand every day.

I carry a small selection of 2-inch grubs for the toughest, cold-front-related bites. These are presented with ultralight gear—4-pound line and 1/32- to 1/16-ounce jigheads. A 3-inch grub comes into play far more often, but the bulk of my grub fishing involves 4- and 5-inch grubs.

Kalin’s makes a very soft grub, with a thin, sensitive tail that augers well on a slow retrieve. Moreover, Kalin’s (now owned by Uncle Josh) maintains one of the widest selections of grub colors available, many that are clear or highly translucent—a huge factor in clearwater lakes and reservoirs. YUM grubs are impregnated with a concoction of scents and flavors that smallmouths seem reluctant to turn loose, and because the YUM Muy Grande is slightly thicker and bulkier than a Berkley Power Grub, I give it the nod as my favorite river grub (most days).

Tubes can imitate anything, depending on rigging, color, and how they’re presented. Carry some 2-inch tubes for the same reason you might carry 2-inch grubs, but most tubes should be 3 to 4 inches long. The 3-inch Berkley Power Tube is thin-walled so most colors have a nice translucency, and Berkley’s 4-inch Power Tube has a solid nose, allowing it to grip an offset-shank hook better when Texas-rigged. Berkley PowerBaits still contain the best formula for encouraging fish to hold on after biting. (It stinks so good.) And Berkley tubes are machined, so each tentacle is uniform.