The best lures for river smallmouth: current does the work

River smallmouth eat crayfish more than anything else, and a tube dragged across a rocky bottom is the closest imitation there is. It falls nose-down, it kicks up silt, and the tentacles move in current without you doing anything.

3 1/2 in published is the right size for a river fish. Larger tubes are a lake bait; in current you want something a smallmouth can take in one go.

Berkley publishes it as infused with the PowerBait scent-and-flavor formula, and publishes no country of manufacture for it. The scent is the pack’s central claim and the one thing on it you cannot check by looking; we have not tested whether it changes a bite.

Fish it on a 1/8 to 1/4 oz jig head, cast up and across, and let the current carry it along the bottom with the rod tip following. Our jig heads page covers matching the weight to the flow.

An inline spinner produces flash and vibration the moment it moves, which is exactly what you want in current where a fish has a fraction of a second to decide.

The three published weights map onto river water neatly: 1/8 oz for shallow riffles, 1/4 oz as the general choice, 1/2 oz for deep pools and heavy flow.

Machined brass spacers are published, and the reason that matters is friction. A blade that starts turning immediately works when you swing it slowly across a seam, which is the whole river presentation.

Cast across and slightly upstream, and let it swing down through the seam. Our inline spinners page covers the family.

The published 3–6 ft running depth is most of a river. Outside deep pools, smallmouth water is shallow, and a bait that digs to six feet is already on the bottom.

A square bill is published as a deflection design, and in a river that is the technique rather than a bonus. You want it hitting the laydown, caroming off, and changing direction in front of a fish holding behind it.

Published as silent, with no rattle. In the clear water a lot of smallmouth rivers run, that is an advantage over a noisier bait on pressured fish.

Fish it downstream of the cover and retrieve it back past — a bait swimming naturally with the current reads right to a fish facing upstream.

River smallmouth feed hard on the surface in low light through summer, and nothing else on this page is as enjoyable.

The published 2.5 in, 1/4 oz size is the river choice. The 3 in Magnum is a lake bait and the 2 in Small is for genuinely tiny water.

Fish the slack water: the flat above a riffle, the eddy behind a boulder, the soft edge of a seam. Cast into it, let the rings settle, then twitch and pause.

Most takes come on the pause. Our topwater page covers the cadence, and it applies here with the addition that the current is also moving your bait.