Cajun Cuisine: Want to get a smallmouth’s attention? Tie on a crawfish

May 3, 2009 by admin

Served fresh on a bed of gravel and garnished with moss, a live crawfish has the same appeal to a smallmouth bass as does the last boiled crawfish on an appetizer platter at a south Louisiana festival.

Smallmouths eat crawfish – lots of ’em. In streams and lakes alike throughout Kentucky, crawfish are at or near the top of the smallies’ favorite foods list. Therefore, if you want to catch your share of smallmouths, be sure to incorporate plenty of crawfish imitating lures into your bait selections.

Because crawfish are such important forage for smallmouths (and various other species), lure manufacturers make many different kinds of lures that imitate crafish in one way or another. Most fall into the broad category of crankbaits, soft-plastic lures or jigs.

Probably best known of the crawfish lures is a Rebel crawfish. One of the best-selling lures in the nation, as it has been for many years, a Rebel Crawfish imitates a craw in its swimming posture (claws tucked in), which is when a live crawfish is most vulnerable.

The Wee Crawfish model, which is 2 inches long, is the original size and is still the most popular. However, the smaller Teeny Www Crawfish and Deep Teeny Wee Crawfish also work really well for smallmouths, especially in small streams. Whatever the size, a steady retrieve is tough to top.

A couple other crankbaits, and Arbogast Mud Bug and a Luhr Jensen Kawdad, are specifically shaped to look like crawfish. Beyond these, however, nearly every crankbait ever created comes in assorted crawfish color patterns, and those patterns are invariably among the favorites of smallmouth fishermen.

Bright crawfish patterns, most of which feature a lot of red and orange, work great during early spring when rain or snowmelt adds color to the upper ends of usually clear waters. Fish a small crankbait fast over the tops of rocky points and main lake humps, choosing a model that will “tick” the bottom as it comes across the structure.

Crankbaits imitate crawfish best when they run deep enough to kick up gravel or at least swim close to the b ottom. Crafish tend to stay close to the rocks and often scoot around among them, so that’s where smallmouth look for craw-flavored snacks.

Other than crankbaits, the most obvious crawfish imitators are various craw worms or other soft-plastic crawfish. These baits usually have “crawfish,” “craw,” or “claw” somewhere in their names.

The most popular lures in the soft plastic set are the craw worms, which have a worm-type body and crawfish claws and head shape. Cabin Creek Bait Company, based in Winchester, offers a classic 4-inch craw worm in their soft-plastics line.

Many crawfish imitations developed over the past couple years — lie Yum Craw bugs, Cabela’s AquaGlow Tube Craws, Storm’s Rattle Hot Claw Tubes and Madman Crawfish Tubes — and have very realistic crawfish shapes and tube bodies. Because of the tube bodies, these baits sink slowly when Texas rigged. Pitch them around boulders or beside stumps on gravel flats, let them drop and hold on.

A craw worm, lime a craw tube, can be Texas rigged. In addition, you can rig one Carolina style, fish it very slowly on a split-shot rig or string it on a leadhead and swim it in creeks or bounce it down rocky points in reservoirs. The leadhead rig, especially, has great applications for Kentucky smallmouths.

Beyond the many soft-plastic offerings, that actually have specific craw-like qualities, numerous other soft-plastic baits are commonly used to suggest crawfish. Grubs, fished on leadheads and bounced down rocks, are classic examples, but over the past few years, various “creature” designs like Yum Woolly Hawgtails and Gene Larew Hoo-Daddies have become very popular among smallmouth fishermen.

A final popular way to use a soft-plastic crawfish is to match it with a jig, which is another type of lure that is commonly used to imitate a crawfish. The term “jig-and-craw” has become almost as popular as “jig-and-pig” among bass anglers, and many jig specialists favor either craw worms or craw-type pork or plastic “chunks” over other trailer types for smallmouths.

Rubber-skirted jigs and hair jigs both have their advocates, but hair jigs, like a Punisher Jig, probably get the nod from the most mountain-lake smallmouth fishermen. March is a great time to bounce a hair jig down a chunk rock bank at Dale Hollow or Lake Cumberland.

The best crawfish-imitating colors vary from lake to lake and stream to stream based on the color of crawfish and the water colors. Brown and orange is a popular color combination for jigs. For stained water, many fishermen like craw trailers that have chartreuse or pink claws.

For fishing a jig-and-craw, a key to success is keeping the bait near the bottom all the time, which often means slowing down. Even if you are swimming a jig, give it time to sink after your cast, swim it slowly and pause from time to time to let the offering sink again.

Also, keep your line as tight as conditions will allow as the bait falls and watch the line all the time. Smallmouths often will hit jigs (or bottom-bumping soft-plastic crawfish) on the fall, and sometimes all you’ll feel is a gentle tick.

When you feel anything or see any unusual line movements, set the hook solidly, and be ready for action. Sometimes the lightest strikes turn out to be the biggest smallmouths!

By Jeff Samsel, previously published in The Kentucky Fishing Journal

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