Bumps are a primitive form of communication, like smoke signals. Smallmouths bumping soft plastics without chomping and getting hooked are whispering something—actually, lots of somethings—just out of earshot.

Bumped plastics might be the wrong color, the wrong size, or the wrong style. Perhaps the presentation is off pace—too fast or too slow. Bumps can’t tell you which. Bumps announce that fish are generally active yet barely impressed with what you’re doing. Bumps tell you the fish are there and that they want to eat. Reading the signals reveals only that something must change, without divulging what it might be.

Bumps can be solved with pace. How fast is the bait dropping, or how fast does it have to move to counteract the weight involved? Pace can be altered by changing jig size, going with a different sinker, or by choosing between weighted hooks and bare-bones hooks. Pace problems can stem from moving the bait too fast, or by letting it fall too fast. When bass bump without eating, I try to lighten the package. Even in 20 feet of water, if bass are bumping a 1/4-ounce jig without committing, I might switch to a 1/8-ounce jig. I already know the fish are there, making it worth the wait.

If pace is the problem, slowing down tends to work better than speeding up—most of the time, but not always. On the verge of a truly hot bite (especially in fall), moving faster with larger, more aggressive lures often solves problems with pace.

If bumping persists after a change of pace, it’s time to play with size, style, rigging, and color. And your ducks should already be in order, because you anticipated problems. (Always anticipate problems with smallmouths.)

Plastic Selection 101

Consider cover first. When bass hover on snaggy piles of broken rock, list everything that swims. Grubs, worms, and soft sticks top the list, so grab a bag of each on the way to the casting deck. You should already know a color or two that might work, given the water clarity, water color, and past experience. The time to play with color comes after determining which style of plastic will be most effective that day.

In wood and weeds, downscale the action part of the equation. Ripple tails (snake-style worms) and auger-tail grubs tend to be less effective than smaller curlytails or straight tails, which grab less cover. Tubes and finesse worms become increasingly important as the cover thickens, as will Texas-rigging and Texas-style jigs that allow you to bury the hook point in the lure while keeping the bait straight, so it won’t twist.

“Mung” is slang for filamentous algae. In some areas it clings to every rock and log, particularly in early summer. Let a lure touch bottom just once, briefly, and mung’s the word. Drop-shot rigging comes to mind, wherein the plastic can be set any distance above a mungy bottom. Even more efficient is a float, which can suspend a wacky-rigged worm just above the mung zone without a sinker to hang. Every type of cover lends itself to a logical solution of this sort, and every type of plastic bait performs differently in each type of cover.