Smallmouth bass are super fun and beautiful fish to catch. And jigs are some of the best lures to catch smallmouth bass.
Their versatility and realistic presentations can catch smallies in every season, water conditions, or bodies of water.
In order to maximize your smallmouth success, here are the best smallmouth bass jigs.
After years of testing out all sorts of lures, these 5 jigs have proved to catch me the most and the biggest smallmouth bass.
Finesse bass jigs have the traditional weed guard that makes bass jigs so weedless.
This allows you to fish them in heavy cover, grass, and bottoms with tons of debris.
Contrary to swim, flipping, and football jigs, finesse jigs are lighter weight, smaller, have lighter wire hooks, and have thinner weed guards.
The downsized characteristics of finesse jigs make them much easier for smallies to fit them in their smaller mouths.
I primarily use finesse jigs as a crawfish imitation. But they also mimic goby and bluegill very well.
Hair jigs are one of the oldest lures ever made. Anglers have been catching smallmouth bass on hair jigs for over a hundred years.
The free-flowing hair and feathers undulating through the water catches tons of smallies.
Hair jigs work best in very clear water because they have very little presence in the water.
They don’t put of any vibration and the hair glides through the water without displacing much or any water.
Adding a small fluke trailer can give the jig a bit bigger profile and catch some bigger bass.
A tube mimics just about anything that swims. It could be a crawfish, a shad, a goby, a minnow, a bluegill, or anything else that the bronze backs are feeding on.
Tubes have similar visual profiles as a hair jig, but with a bulkier size and the extra taste and scent of the soft plastic.
Tubes seem to be especially effective for river smallmouth. I am not sure why this is, but moving water is where I catch the most bass on tubes.
Tubes can also be rigged on a variety of jig heads and hook styles, giving you more versatility.
Curly tail jigs offer a bit of vibration and flash that give smallmouth an easy target.
This also allows them to be fished in more stained water. The classic jig head and curly tail grub combo has been catching trophy smallmouth for decades.
I prefer using a curl tail jig in shallow water. The twisting vibration of the grub causes the jig to sink slower and gives it more rise when retrieved.
This makes it hard to fish in deep water. But in the shallow summer water, almost nothing beats the classic curly tail jig.
The football jig is my go-to deep water jig. During the winter and summer months when smallmouth bass are out deep, I tie on a football jig.
The heavier weight and bigger profile of the football jig allow you to fish it in deeper water and create enough disturbance to draw in smallmouth from farther distances.
The football jig is bigger than the others on this list, so it is important that you choose a high quality football jig that smallmouths can fit in their mouth.
Football jigs aren’t as versatile as some of the others on this list, but they have the ability to catch the biggest smallmouths.
Lure color can be one of the most difficult fishing factors to handle.
Depending on water conditions, time of year, smallmouth’s mood, and other factors, some colors will work better than others.
Pin pointing what the best smallmouth lure colors are is tuff, but you can’t go wrong with these ones.
The general answer is “when smallmouth bass are low in the water column”.
Since jigs are primarily fished on or near the bottom, the lower the smallmouth are in the water, the better jigs are going to work.
But jigs can and will catch smallies pretty much all the time. Smallmouth love eating crawfish and gobies.
Both of which spend most of the time swimming and crawling around the bottom of the water.
So smallmouth already spend most of the time near the bottom. Without a shadow of a doubt, these 5 jigs catch more smallmouth bass than any other lures you could tie on.
The only time I wouldn’t use a jig is when the smallmouth are very aggressive.
If they are suspending higher up and chasing after prey, use a faster, more aggressive lure to get them to strike.
Bass jigs are the most classic and time tested smallmouth lures out there.
Each jig has it’s own unique characteristics and presentations that can persuade bass to bite.
Smallmouth bass are one of the most highly sought after sport fish, and jigs are the number one way to catch them.
As long as you have a few of the above jigs in your arsenal, you will have no problem catching tons of big smallies.
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