When you set out to catch smallmouth bass, you’ll need several supplies on hand. Your pole, reel, line, and tackle box filled with bait, hooks, lures, and everything else you need for a successful day on the water are all a necessity.
While some of those things might be easy enough to grab off a shelf, choosing the right lure for your trip can be tricky.
As any experienced angler will tell you, the right lure can make or break your fishing trip. Certain options draw in smallmouth bass, along with other species, quickly. On the other hand, many lures simply don’t have the same capability.
If you want to read up on some of the best smallmouth bass lures on the market, you’ve come to the right place.
Top 13 Smallmouth Bass Lures
- Cotton Cordell Gay Blade
- Rapala X-Rap
- Storm Wiggle Wart
- Yamamoto Senko Bait
- Strike King Swim’n Jig Bait
- Rebel Pop-R
- Cotton Cordell Big O
- Heddon Tiny Torpedo
- Mepps Aglia Double Blade
- YUM CrawBug
- Sougayilang Spoons
- Bomber Model A
- Original Floating Rapala Minnow
Cotton Cordell Gay Blade
The Cotton Cordell Gay Blade comes in five vibrant colors and three sizes, giving you a bit of variety to choose from.
However, if you’re aiming to catch smallmouth bass or other game fish, the Chartreuse option is one of the most effective. You’ll also get 2-prong hooks, dual tie-line holes, and a nice, flashy appearance.
This lure is weighted for long casting and has a good wiggle action for attracting fish. The baitfish flash draws in game fish, including smallmouth bass, striper, and crappie. This lure works best in freshwater, as saltwater can and will cause it to rust or wear down.
Rapala X-Rap
The Rapala X-Rap is a weighted lure that comes in eight colors. Its deep diving lip ensures the lure will rush toward the bottom with wobble action, which, along with the hues, size, and flash from its striking scales and lateral line, make for a perfect replica of a typical bait minnow.
In addition, the double-hooked long casting system has a running depth of 6 to 15 feet, giving you a lot of flexibility for location.
You’ll get a decent twitch action and flash with the X-Rap. Combined with an attention-grabbing rattle, you’ll have no trouble drawing in all the smallbouth bass your’re hoping to catch.
Storm Wiggle Wart
If you’ve ever tested out Storm’s Mag Wart, you might want to check out this miniature version, the Wiggle Wart, for smaller game, including smallmouth bass.
This lure comes in three colors and has a rigid molded body with an integrated lip design, making it an excellent crankbait for smallmouth bass.
The loud cadence-style rattle and realistic side-to-side wiggle draw fish to the Wiggle Wart. It has a 5 to 7-foot running depth, so it’s best suited for shallower waters. You won’t have any trouble snagging freshwater species of bass, bluegill, and crawfish.
Yamamoto Senko Bait
Yamamoto’s Senko bait is a soft bait worm made of silicone. It comes in several dozen colors, a range of sizes, and includes 8 worms per pack.
They’re unweighted and unhooked, so you can rig them up however you’d like, from wacky to weightless. What’s best is that you can get a running depth of up to 22 feet.
Weightless rigging tends to be best to give the worms the most realistic float, flash, and wiggle. Letting them sink naturally provides the best fish-attracting shine and the most lifelike movements, making these worms an excellent option for all varieties of bass.
Just be forewarned that durability isn’t the Senko’s strong suit, so you can expect larger fish to be rough on them.
Strike King Bitsy Bug Mini Jig
The Strike King Bitsy Bug Mini Jig is a micro jig lure that’s great as a drag-along bottom jig.
It comes in eight colors and three sizes, but the Okeechobee Craw is probably the most versatile option. It’s made of a silicone-skirted dual hook with an inverted tie line that prevents fraying.
One of the best things about the Bitsy Bug is its snagless head. This unique feature helps prevent weed-tangling, so you’ll be able to seek out the smallmouth bass and northern pike that like to hang out in the weeds without worrying about losing your line. You’ll want to use this one with a plastic trailer for the best results.
Rebel Pop-R
The Rebel Pop-R comes in 19 styles and four sizes. However, the Triple Threat is one of the best options because it comes with three of the most productive lures for catching smallmouth bass.
While it was discontinued for quite a while, top tournament anglers helped popularize it and bring it back to the stores. It’s been a standard for poppers ever since.
This is an excellent topwater lure for early morning or dusk fishing. It has lifelike twitch action, so if you’re hoping to snag some smallmouth bass, pickerel, bluegill, or similar, this trio pack of lures will give you what you need.
Cotton Cordell Big O
The Cotton Cordell Big O offers 18 colors and six sizes that give you an array of hook sizes and running depths. It’s not a heavy lure, so it’s suitable for shallow water fishing in freshwater. In particular, you’ll have great luck using it in lakes and streams.
The Pearl Redeye option is great for catching multiple varieties of bass, including smallmouth bass. It has a decent buoyancy, and its shimmy and flash are efficient at drawing in violent strikes.
What’s nice is that these lures are really durable, so you shouldn’t have a problem using them for years to come.
Heddon Tiny Torpedo
You’ll find eleven color options and a variety of sizes when you check out the Heddon Tiny Torpedo. This topwater lure comes with a dual hook, and it’s weighted enough to provide a long cast with a splashy surface disturbance.
The Tiny Torpedo is useful for catching schooling fish in streams and rivers because it travels naturally with the currents.
Still, it’s a good choice for any freshwater application. It has a good flutter, twitch, and popping action that quickly draws in various bass and northern pike species.
Mepps Aglia Double Blade
The Mepps Aglia Double Blade is a flashy lure with dual blades, a white skirt, and a dual carbon-steel hook. The silver blade is plated with genuine silver, which provides a bright white flash that’s attractive to fish.
The dual blades on the Aglia give a nice fluttering motion that makes it easy to fish in the weeds.
It’s useful in various freshwater environments and works well at most depths. If you’re often out in murky, weedy waters, the bright flash on this one will be handy.
YUM CrawBug
The YUM CrawBug is one of the most realistic lures on this list. This soft bait crawfish comes in two sizes and 17 lifelike colors.
Each one has intricate 3D details that make it hard to distinguish from the real thing. In addition, the CrawBug comes 8 to a pack, so you won’t have to stress about losing them, which is a common frustration with soft bait.
The CrawBug is ideal for crappie, smallmouth bass, and pike. However, since you’ll want to be able to use a bump-and-crawl method, weighting is a necessity. Weighted bass hooks will do the trick and get you lots of strikes.
Sougayilang Spoons
The Sougayilang Spoon lure comes in gold or silver and offers some of the best flashing you’ll find in a smallmouth bass lure.
Each 5-pack contains S-shaped lures with genuine gold plating, hooks, and feather trailers. These well-balanced lures sink fast and work well at almost any depth.
The Spoon’s unique shape and bumpy texture make this lure look just like a swimming fish.
The texture also creates an attention-grabbing noise that’ll attract trout, pickerel, panfish, and multiple bass varieties. What’s best is that it has a rust-resistant brass construction, which gives this lure a long life.
Bomber Model A
The Bomber Model A is a crankbait lure that comes in nearly two dozen styles. Its tough construction makes it very durable and dependable, and it easily mimics the most common baitfish.
Moreover, it features two high-quality dual hooks and a rattle that create fish-attracting sounds underwater.
The Model A is excellent for freshwater fishing applications. You’ll get up to 8 feet of running depth, depending on the size you choose. The Chartreuse Black Scale style is ideal for catching smallmouth bass, crappie, walleye, and northern pike.
Original Floating Rapala Minnow
If you like to use old-school lures, the Original Floating Rapala Minnow will be a perfect choice for your next smallmouth bass fishing trip.
It comes in eight different designs and has a lightweight balsa wood construction. In addition, this floating lure comes with black nickel hooks that offer durability despite its low weight.
The hand painting on these lures offers some of the most lifelike minnow colors and markings you’ll find on a floating lure. The Minnow is great for shallow fishing and is excellent at drawing in rainbow trout and various species of bass.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it. These are some of the best smallmouth bass lures your money can buy. They vary in size, color, running depth, and other features, which should help you narrow down your search for the ideal lure.
Try not to get too overwhelmed by all the options, though. The lures listed here have been vetted by anglers all over the world, so you can put your mind at ease knowing they’ve all been successful at drawing in heaps of smallmouth bass.
Are there any other lures you think should’ve made this list? Feel free to sound off in the comments!
Looking for a good baitcaster to go with your new lures? Check out these awesome baitcaster reels that won’t break the bank!
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