Article Written by Andrew Ragas. Learn More About the Author Below / Article Read Time 8 Minutes
Finesse fishing for smallmouth has come a long way. More anglers are turning to long spinning rod and high-capacity reel set-ups for achieving long casts with light line presentations.
Browse across the internet, and search through your favorite online retailers and manufacturers. From rod selection to line choices, and baits, everyone is prioritizing the marketing and sales for long line finesse fishing.
I used to be of the belief my 20-pound Cortland Master braid main-line on a 7-foot MF was light enough for my spinning set-ups. It has the diameter of 6-pound mono. When I started fishing this line in 2011 it was the only line size I’ve ever needed until 2018. While 20-pound is still a big player for me, especially in most snaggy-bottom and monster fish regards, it’s presently considered heavy. Nowadays, this 20-pound line gets spooled on my baitcasting reels that I use for heavier jigging and casting applications for both smallmouth and largemouth.
Each winter off-season, I find myself going on a main-line decrease, downsizing my reel spools to a greater variety of 10, 8, or 5-pound Masterbraid. It’s crazy to think that a size-30 spinning reel can now hold upwards of 250-yards of 5-pound braided main line. On the long rod, unthinkably, it casts baits a mile!
It’s amazing to think that nowadays a 5-pound braided line has the strength and capacity to handle a fish of similar weight or heavier. For example, 5-pound Master braid has the diameter of less than 1-pound monofilament. Because of the noteworthy advancements in braided lines offered by all manufacturers, very rarely does anyone ever need to fish with antiquated monofilament anymore. Long rods with powerful backbone and lively flex help achieve that perfect handling with finesse baits deployed on a super-thin braided line.
How did we get to this point?
Outwitting the Smart Smallmouth
Smallmouth are experts in sensory detection. Nowadays, more adult smallmouth are wary of overhead boat traffic and high-powered sonar. Deploy your FFS transducer in forward mode, and those smallmouth scatter and disperse from the boat, or choose to lay low to the bottom. They’ve become elusive and uncatchable as a result.
As these fish undergo changes in behavior and feeding locations, anglers must cater their gear and strategies to these changes. Today, everyone is showing up to the lake with an arsenal of finesse rods and baits rigged up. Whether the strategy calls for jigging or casting, finesse fishing has turned into an arms race.
As adult fish are repeatedly caught and released throughout their lifetime, they learn not to strike certain lures. We see this all the time on pressured community lakes and derby waters. Most days, the shallows of these fisheries get pounded the most. Fish want to feed and spawn in the shallows without feeling exploited, but the pressure forces them to abort those areas and relocate to new areas. So, not only are they conditioned to lures, but they’re also learning to avoid the most pressured lake regions, and angler capture.
In the recent covid seasons, the fishing pressure and overall angling hours on my local lakes sky-rocketed. Smallmouth that customers and I once had to ourselves got hit from several anglers. The fisheries took a beating from capture, re-capture, and harvest in 2020-21. The surviving fish became better educated as a result.
Gone are the days of being the only boat on the water. Nowadays my boat has to use lighter diameter lines (described above) in order to better manipulate, subtler and natural presentations, and make longer casts with. Likewise, most casting and jigging set-ups are requiring several feet of fluorocarbon leader line to help conceal and mask the offering. If you don’t come prepared to finesse fish like this, you could swing and miss.
Long Line Strategies
Smallmouth inhabiting almost every lake are seeing some form of each downsized plastic offering on a daily basis. Yet they are also getting more suspicious and conditioned to them. Dropped baits and disengagement are becoming as frequent as pickups. More finesse is now required to keep up with their feeding habits and personalities. More anglers are now turning to lighter lines and longer rods.
Lightweight braids are advantageous for the deployment of most finesse baits. Consider a 1/16-ounce hair jig for example. While this ball of marabou or bucktail might have been too light and impossible to cast with the common set-up of years prior, it’s now possible to launch for extreme distances with 8-foot length rods such as St. Croix’s Victory Crosshair (VTS710MLXF) and my personal favorite, the Legend Tournament Bass Hair Jig (LBTS710MLXF).
Some finesse anglers might not be as like-minded as me. Perhaps you like going old-school with 4 and 6-pound mono instead. The benefits of it remain stretch, flotation, and better control of lure sinking. This could greatly aid and manipulate in the fall rate of that same hair jig being worked with 5-pound braid and fluoro leader through the shallows. I still find applicable year-round uses with mono when casting 3-inch Kalin’s Lunker Grubs and other twister-tail styled moving plastics.
I’m not a fan of operating fluorocarbon lines as a main line, but some prefer it on targeting deeper-holding, suspending fish. This would be a winning formula with spy-baits for sure, and drop-shotting.
More anglers today are rigged up with long rods and light line in order to deploy their favorite finesse baits like these types -
SWIMMERS – In recent years, no other segment of fishing lures and bait styles has grown exponentially and diversely as paddletails and swimbaits. Many brands feature different designs and variations, models, colorways, and styles. For catching smallmouth quickly, the lineup of soft swimbaits offered by Z-Man Fishing Products accomplishes this task.
Z-Man’s top-selling baits worldwide, the 4-inch DieZel MinnowZ, 3-inch MinnowZ and 2.5-inch SlimSwimZ replicate the look, action and strike-evoking attraction of a live minnow better than any other soft baits manufactured. These bite sized paddletails both conquer the fisheries from my boat.
Their ElaZtech formulation creates a lifelike swimming action and durability. I am most keen on swimbaits that can pump under any retrieve speed. In this capacity, ElaZtech formulation is a modern marvel.
“I prefer a bait whose tail continues kicking even as you stop the retrieve and let the bait freefall. It’s one minor detail that can make a huge difference, and very few soft plastic paddletails can pull this off because they’re mostly composed of PVC plastics rather than ultrasoft ElaZtech, which offers more freedom to move in the tail,” says Cory Schmidt, Z-Man’s marketing director.
Also benefitting Z-Man’s swimbaits is ElaZtech’s buoyancy, allowing for slower retrieves than other swimbaits. This characteristic is a necessity in my search for smallmouth that could be anywhere in the water columnSwimmers can come in downsized finesse offerings, too. Z-Man capitalized on this need with the 2.5-inch Slim SwimZ. “On the small side, the little 2.5” Slim SwimZ is one of the most versatile, downsized swimbaits in existence. Put it on a 1/5-ounce Finesse ShroomZ jighead and fish it almost any way you want,” admits Schmidt. Slightly larger, “The 3-inch MinnowZ is a thin (slightly flattened) profile that can mimic shiners, ciscoes and baby perch—all staple forage in the north. Its medium sized, flattened paddletail lies at a perpendicular (90-degree) angle to the body, which gives it plenty of water resistance and thereby, more rapid tail thumping action. Also means you can retrieve it a little slower and still benefit from its motion and vibration (thump).”
For my long-casting program, I bomb the 2.5 Slim SwimZ and 3-inch MinnowZ with St. Croix’s Victory Open Water (VTS710MMF). Released in early 2022, this long-cast spinning rod excels at launching baits in big water, open-water scenarios. Intended for spybait fishing, I found several other uses with it that includes covering water with small swimbaits and light line. Complemented with a long-cast 3000 or 4000 size spinning reel spooled up with 8 or 10 lb. Cortland Masterbraid, and you have the perfect medium moderate action lure launcher to cast baits far while still being able to make contact with fish and hold on to long-distance hook-sets. The long length of the rod enables you to hang on to fish that typically strike mid-retrieve, and from several yards out.
Additionally, The Keitech Fat Swing Impact is another finesse favorite. I was turned on to these on an Indian-summer afternoon a few Septembers ago when St. Croix Rods marketing director, Jesse Simpkins, put on a clinic with them. Head-to-head with me, his 2.8 model in Pro Staff Special rigged on a 5/32-ounce ned head caught more than 20 smallmouth compared to the one I caught with an identical 3.8 model of the same bait. The Swing Impact is heavily salt impregnated, and formulated with a softer and supple plastisol. While these features make it deadly, their downfall is poor durability and at a higher cost. Despite these shortcomings, the swing impact remains the most popular paddletail manufactured.
And might you need something even subtler, try a swimming grub. Whether smallmouth are active or inactive, a grub can always be relied on for catching a few fish, no matter where. Whether slow rolled and retrieved along bottom, high in the water column, or somewhere in-between, a swimming grub does it all.
The grubs I depend on the most are made by Kalin’s, Strike King, and Berkley. Kalin’s 5-inch Lunker Grubs fished on exposed ¼ oz. minnow heads are my boat’s fish finders and fish catchers on most days. If downsizing is necessary, in which smallmouth are fixated on smaller prey, consider downsizing to a 3-inch Lunker Grub with 1/8-ounce head. With lighter line it usually seals the deal.
Grubs will imitate everything. I always strive to match the hatch with natural baitfish profiles and translucent colors. On other fisheries such as river systems, smallmouth could be favoriting crayfish instead. Many grubs are available in crayfish patterns.
I fish them with the same aforementioned rods for my paddletails. Casting and steady retrieving them is the standby technique. Jigging and crawling the bottom under slower speeds can be done too, with the only adjustment to consider is usage of a mushroom or football styled head.
HAIR JIGS - Today’s generation of smallmouth remain unconditioned to the simplicies of a marabou hair jig. The ultra-light weight and extreme slow fall of the hair jig enables it to hang in range of a smallmouth’s strike zone in the upper water column. With the proper tackle, allow the hair do all the work and slow glide for you.
You need a long rod with a large capacity spool to get hair jigs out there. I’ve previously favored 7 and a half foot medium light rods such as the Mojo Bass Hair Jig (MJS76MLXF), however St. Croix’s new introduction of the Legend Tournament Hair Jig (LBTS710MLXF) overtook it as being my favorite. It launches them a mile.
SPY BAITS – Spy baits can be fished effectively at different levels of the water column. Most anglers fail to understand that spy baiting requires long distance casting with long rods and light line in the form of 5 lb. fluorocarbon or braided line, and painfully slow retrieves in order to maintain its sink rate, quiet profile, and undetectability. The deeper it’s fished, the slower it must be retrieved. The St. Croix Victory Open Water (VTS710MMF) is ideal for the presentation.
The Victory Open Water rod leaves no guessing on what it excels at: Launching baits in big water, open-water scenarios.
The three prong blades of spy baits do majority of the work for you. Also, depending on your cadence and retrieve, you can fish them like a jerkbait, or a slow hanging glide bait, and even snap jig them. When snap jigging, it produces a powerful vibration. Let it sink downwards, it has a steady glide with just enough hang time.
Worked thru shallow water, suspended mid-column, and out in the open water abyss, you’ll quickly learn spin baits can often be a solution to catching fish and when nothing else works. The ideal situation for me is flat calm, sunny days and roaming spooky fish.
Smallmouth fishing strategies are quickly evolving more to open water. Whether you finesse fish or power fish, The Open Water is a can’t-miss.
Long Rods and Thin Lines
Your strategies might not be like mine, but hopefully you are utilizing at least one long rod for your fishing that is fast, flexy, and strong like my bomb-casting arsenal of St. Croix spinning setups.
Today’s medium-light and light action long rods are rated for lines as light as 5-pound test. Their fast tops also improve casting accuracy and distance. Lengths help manage and control big smallmouth when hooked from afar and through the duration of battle until successful capture. Their flex also offers better pressure and tension too. The greatest benefit of them all – long rods won’t tire out a big bass to death like short rods of yester-year were prone to do.
Cast lighter lures farther with less effort and no more fatigue. Embrace the long rod mentality, and make magic with finesse.
About the author
Andrew Ragas splits time between the Chicago area and Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Based in Minocqua, WI, he specializes in trophy bass fishing and offers guided trips from May thru October. While big bass is the passion, he dabbles in multi-species as well. He may be visited online at www.northwoodsbass.com
