He came strolling up the ramp as darkness descended. “Tough day,” he said, leaning on my boat. “It never seemed tough at this time of year, until local tournaments started hitting the spot with increasing regularity,” I replied. He smiled. “I guess I’m part of the problem. I discovered this river bite in a tournament. Can’t get enough of it now. But the fishing really tapered off this year. I only caught 10. How many—” He paused after glancing down at the bobber rods on my deck. A look of bemused disgust crossed his face. “That’s cheating!”

No, the fishing hasn’t tapered off. It only seems that way, because techniques that worked fantastically well six years ago are all but worthless now. In that short time, pressure morphed thousands of tigers into thousands of puddy ’tats. And kitty likes different toys. My friend at the ramp was wrong to think that a bobber means bait. It can mean jigs, drop-shot rigs, split-shot rigs, plastics on bare hooks, tandem rigs or, yeah, bait. OK, he was right. I was using mud-flap leeches on a #4 Eagle Claw baitholder. And I heard the edge in his voice, the unspoken cry of “Heresy!” If we were Puritans I’d be a pile of ashes.

Those ready to tie me to a stake and light the tinder at my feet, grant me a paragraph in defense: The float goes down when a smallmouth clamps on the bait, and if the bass lets go, the bobber pulls the bait away. Set quickly enough and the hook is generally in the mouth, almost never in the gills, but sometimes swallowed. If so, cut the line, donate a small single hook, and the fish will probably be fine. If it happens more than once: A) You’re on a bite hot enough to preclude bait, or B) Switch to circle hooks and remember not to set the hook, but rather point the rod at the fish, let the tension build until the hook is set in the corner of the mouth, and sweep. Now, how many of you have tried to remove both trebles on an $8 crankbait from the gills of an overly aggressive smallmouth? Case closed. Now get away from me with those matches.

But why use floats for smallmouths? First: A suspended jig, plastic, hardbait, or livebait is uniquely well adapted to catching smallmouths, the wild success of suspending jerkbaits standing in evidence. If it’s something they generally eat, they might eat it. If it hovers just over their heads and stays there, they will almost assuredly eat it. Take a look around, next time you’re smallmouth fishing. With the exception of float-and-fly anglers plying cold water, nobody uses floats for smallmouths to take advantage of this dynamic. Second: A kid could do this. So it’s a great way to introduce kids to smallmouths.

Ever eat lunch? Bobbers. Relax and enjoy while a fly or plastic worm bobs enticingly under the waves nearby. Ever have smallmouths gather under your boat? Bobbers. Right off the transom. Matt Smiley of Eagle Claw watched a 5-pound smallmouth follow a hooked walleye up to my net last year. “It went right under the boat,” he said. I suggested that he suspend a leech right off the transom with a float rod I had rigged and ready on the deck. We were anchored, but could have been drifting slowly and the same thing would have happened. Smiley hooked the fish right beside the outboard about 5 minutes later.

Three years ago, that bass could have been taken on a jig-grub combo held directly under the boat, hanging horizontally, or it might have responded to a slow lift-drop with a plastic worm. That doesn’t work so well anymore in that lake, which brings us back to the subject of pressure. (Don’t ask why, if it bit right under the boat anyway, it wouldn’t bite a tube. It might have, but you’ve just got to be there sometimes.)

When bass boats are buzzing around everywhere on a river or lake, smallmouths can really shut down. By taking advantage of wind or current, a float system takes your presentation out of casting range and out of the “spook zone” fish have taped off around your boat. Floats systematically cover large, shallow flats, yet hold baits and plastics stationary in key eddies behind points and emergent boulders. And floats keep you fishing longer by suspending baits over most of the snags, especially when skillfully applied.

For smallmouth fishermen, the last line of defense, the final hope, the 3-pointer at the buzzer has become the lowly bobber. Remember all those bobbers you gave to your kids? Slip into the garage right now and raid their boxes, because you’re going to want that equipment back.

Systems -- Rod, Reel & Line

A fixed float is stationary, or the opposite of a slipfloat. Fixed styles include the clip-on Plastilite Plasti-Bobs developed by Charlie Nuckols, which most anglers use for float-and-fly applications. Thill River Masters and other stem floats designed for current are also fixed floats, secured to the line with rubber or silicone sleeves. Plastic bubbles, like the Rainbow Plastics A-Just-A-Bubble, are secured by twisting surgical tubing around the line inside the float.

Those fixed styles adjust quickly to different depths. Just slide the float up or down the line. Line slides through a hole in the bottom of a waggler-style float, like the Thill TG Waggler, so it can be used as a slipfloat or held in place with two tiny split shot, one on each side of the hole in the stem. Some floats are designed to be tied to the line, fixing the distance between the float and the bait until you tie on a new leader. Fixed floats make it difficult to fish deeper than 10 feet down, and it’s almost impossible to fish deeper than 15 feet without a very long pole.

Slipfloats like Rod-N-Bobb’s work best with livebaits being presented deeper than 10 feet. Added weight required with a slipfloat to drag the line through it can hinder the presentation of plastics at times. But in the Great Lakes and many southern reservoirs, active bass spend much of their time feeding in depths of 20 to 60 feet. Livebait suspended under a larger slipfloat, using several large split shot to take it down quick, will take those fish in many situations.

The rod to use is one like the Slip Stick (the Legend Tournament TWS80MLF) from St. Croix. Designed as a slipbobber rod for walleyes, this 8-foot telescoping stick is equally right for smallmouth bass and fits in any rod locker. It can handle 10-pound line, but it protects a 4-pound leader. The added length provides far better control of the line and the float, compared to a 7-footer, making it exponentially better than a 6-footer. Most importantly, when the float goes down, a Slip Stick has the backbone to straighten the 90-degree angle that float put in your line. Lift the float out of the water, and ram the hook home.

A reel like the new Team Daiwa Tierra 2500 is the right size with an incomparable drag mechanism, and a fine drag is critical. The line is critical, too. I use 8- to 10-pound Raven or Siglon F, since these Japanese lines have a very hard outer sheath that resists absorption for at least a few hours longer than the average monofilament line. The worst line to use on the reel is fluorocarbon, because it’s dense and sinks right away, making life miserable for a float fisherman.

Braided lines like Berkley FireLine float and can be very good for that reason; but fixed floats and bobber stops slip up and down on the line too much, making it difficult to maintain the precise depth where most strikes occur. A-Just-A-Bubbles work just fine with braids, but with other float systems, setting hooks and fighting fish make the float slide, something you want to avoid. It can be done, but not with the standard sleeves that come with the float. Try experimenting with various diameters and lengths of surgical tubing when using braids. Leaders, usually tied to a small swivel or tied in with back-to-back uni-knots, should be 4- to 8-pound fluorocarbon.

Systems -- Floats & Riggings

The float is chosen to present a specific chosen bait or soft plastic, and to match conditions and the depths being targeted. For most smallmouth fishing, I use the A-Just-A-Bubble. The line passes through surgical tubing, which runs end-to-end through the center. The float is secured by twisting the end cap, which twists the surgical tubing and grips the line. It should be secured tightly enough not to slip on a hook-set, yet loosely enough to slide when depth adjustment is required.

The A-Just-A-Bubble is neither an extremely sophisticated nor an extremely sensitive float. Smallmouths generally don’t require us to approach them the way a European might, with a hundred floats—one for each mph of wind speed, and one for each additional microscopic split shot. When a 2-pound smallmouth decides to eat a suspended offering, it generally attacks with enough aggression to pull down a gallon milk jug, so the A-Just-A-Bubble is about as sophisticated as needs be, even in rivers. It’s constructed with relatively dense butyrate plastic, allowing it to be tossed long distance with no additional weight, when a slow, natural fall is the right trigger. And water can be added to this hollow float by pulling the end cap out a little and submerging it, making the float cast farther and stand a little more vertically.

The A-Just-A-Bubble slides up on the mainline, then a small SPRO swivel is attached. Tie a 3- to 5-foot, 6- to 8-pound fluorocarbon leader to the swivel. A hook or jig comes next. Most of the time, a size #4 to size #2 Gamakatsu baitholder is just right, because it has a fanatically sharp point and a down eye. Baitholders are equally right for wacky-rigging plastic worms and tubes as for presenting live leeches and crawlers. For minnows, I prefer an Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp L143, in sizes #1 through 3/0.

In rivers, smallmouths rarely hold in raging flows or the kind of currents that force steelhead and salmon fishermen to present European-style river floats. But smallmouths often do hold just off the edge of faster flows, right underneath a shoot, or behind big boulders in rapids. That’s when you need a classic European stream float like the Ultra Grayling.

A synthetic-hair jig, a deer-hair jig with rubber legs, or a plain ballhead ranging from 1/16 to 3/16 ounce can be deadly under the right stream float. The pear-shaped body on a wooden stem handles jigs very well when matched correctly. Graham Maisey, owner of Belvoirdale, an outlet for European tackle in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, said Europeans have been “trotting” for ages, applying floats for a variety of species; so I asked which would be most like smallmouths.

“Worm fishing for perch in Europe is similar to fishing smallmouths, in terms of the size of the fish, the leaders, and the bait,” he said, “and the Ultra Grayling is a popular float for that over there. The Grayling Ultra is basically a cane stem in a cork body, which makes it very durable. The more delicate ones are balsa. The Ultra is the muck-about float, as we call it in Europe, because you can muck it about and still have a float to fish with. People in America get upset with floats that aren’t durable, which makes the Grayling Ultra one of the most popular of the true European floats over here. Over there, some floats sell for $35 apiece, and those aren’t designed to be rugged.”

Choosing any old float won’t do. Put yourself in these moccasins for a moment: Smallmouths are bumping, but not taking, a jig-grub combo on a river flat. Anchor the boat. Break out the float rod. Tie on a 1/16- to 1/8-ounce jig-grub combo. Pitch it out. Check (hold the float back) heavily and often. The jig rises a few feet and sits there, the plastic tail working, right over their fussy little heads. That’s how a fixed float catches smallmouths in ways a slipfloat can’t. Check a slipfloat in current and the bait is pulled up against the float. Here, the stem float rules, and the bubble is an option that won’t track quite as efficiently when being checked.

On lakes, in wind and waves, when it’s important to hold a lure or bait next to objects like boulders or dead heads for a minute or more, a tall waggler is preferred. The bulk of a waggler is held under the surface, with only a colorful stem protruding above, making it less susceptible to wind. This float holds a bait or plastic worm near key cover much longer in wind. A plastic bubble allows you to cover water in wind, however. And windswept shorelines and reefs tend to hold active fish.

A few slipfloats in different shapes and sizes and you’re on your way. Smallmouth floats are a bit more rough-and-tumble than the average panfish float and a bit cruder than the average steelhead float. Sensitivity is not required to the same degree that it might be for steelhead or brown trout. Even a finicky smallmouth, once it decides to eat something, just flat eats it. No need to be dainty about it, mate.

With any float and any kind of lure or bait, manipulating the float itself or manipulating the drift of the float can trigger strikes. Want to see something wild? Create a tandem rig with 2 wacky-rigged worms a foot or more apart and dangle it by the boat. Snap it, then pop it, then sweep it, and watch all the crazy things those two worms will do irrespective of each other.

A jig can be made to rise and fall slowly, stopping dead in its tracks any distance from bottom you choose. A small swimbait can be crawled along with a slow stop-and-go retrieve under a float. Jiggling a float by vibrating the rod tip with a tight line will make a jig quiver, a worm flutter, or a hair jig undulate. Letting the line bow in current or wind, then slowly tightening the line, will make a jig or plastic arc and vector back toward a straight track, a tactic that can sweep a float under a dock or fallen tree while prompting unique action from the bait.

A slight breeze is blowing in off the lake. Smallmouths are gathered shallow in water so clear you can see them 100 feet away. Long casts with light jigs and plastics produce a few follows, but the fish dart away quickly after approaching within 25 feet. Back the boat up, turn everything off, and drift back in, anchor at the ready. Drop the hook two cast lengths out and drift in a little further. Pick up the float rod. Cast upwind of the fish. Sit still. Let the wind work. And watch your opinion of “bass bobbers” drastically change.