There are many great finesse presentations available to bass anglers today. On any given day, if you look across the deck of my boat, you’re probably going to see just about every finesse tactic known to man. I’ll have little swimming minnows, drop-shot rigs, hair jigs, Ned rigs and a handful of other presentations ready to go.
But there’s one bait that has been catching smallmouth bass for me for years and years, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
The tube.
We’re blessed to live here in the North Country, where we get to fish for smallmouth bass a lot. Over the years, I’ve become absolutely sold on tube baits. They’re simply fabulous fish-catching tools, and no matter where smallmouth bass swim in North America, a tube is one bait I want somewhere on the deck of my boat.
Tubes Aren’t Just Smallmouth Baits
Most bass fishermen look at a 2½-inch salt tube and immediately think “smallmouth bass.” I certainly do, too.
But realistically, tubes are much more versatile than that.
We use small tubes for crappies. We use bigger tubes for lake trout in deep-water situations. We’ve even fished oversized tubes for muskies. It’s a basic bait design that can imitate a tremendous variety of forage, which is one reason it’s remained so productive for so many different species.
When it comes to smallmouth bass, however, that compact finesse tube is unquestionably one of the standards.
The real question is: What does a tube represent?
The simple answer is prey.
Depending on where you’re fishing, a tube can resemble different things that bass eat. It can look like a goby, a crawfish or any number of bottom-oriented forage species. That versatility is one of the reasons tubes catch fish from central Minnesota all the way to the Great Lakes and western reservoirs.
The Bottom Is Everything
One of the most important things to understand about tube fishing is that it’s fundamentally a bottom-oriented presentation.
You’ve got to get that bait down there and then fish it effectively over whatever bottom composition is present.
Sometimes we’re fishing rock. Sometimes it’s a sand flat. Other times we’re working a combination of rock and gravel. The important thing is maintaining bottom contact without constantly getting snagged.
That’s where jig weight becomes extremely important.
You want enough weight to get the tube to the bottom and maintain control, but you don’t necessarily want to overpower the presentation.
If you’re fishing a half-ounce tube jig in 12 or 14 feet of water when you don’t need that much weight, you’re probably going to spend more time wedged into the rocks and getting hung up.
The goal is finding that balance where the tube maintains bottom contact but still moves naturally over the structure.
That’s really the key to the entire tube-fishing scenario.
Why an Interior-Weighted Tube Jig Works
For smaller and moderate-sized tubes, I really like an interior-weighted jig design.
The VMC Finesse Tube Jig is designed specifically for this style of fishing. It comes in five different weights and features a 2X fine-wire vanadium steel hook that’s ideally suited for roughly 2½- to 3½-inch tubes.
One of the advantages of an internally weighted tube is how the bait moves across the bottom.
Rather than having a big jig head hanging outside the plastic, the weight is positioned inside the body. That gives the presentation a clean profile and helps it roll and work its way across rocky cover with fewer hang-ups.
That’s become even more important on waters where zebra mussels have become established. Those environments can be brutal on tackle, and an interior-weighted tube is an excellent system for fishing that type of habitat.
The hook itself is another important consideration. Tube fishing can involve dragging your bait through a tremendous amount of rock, so you need a hook that’s strong and maintains its point.
The jig also has weight identification molded into the head, which makes it easier to quickly determine exactly what weight you’re using. Another nice feature is the raised eye, which makes rigging and tying the finished presentation considerably easier.
How I Rig a Finesse Tube
Rigging an internally weighted tube isn’t difficult, but you want to do it correctly.
Take the jig and insert it into the hollow body of the tube. Work the jig all the way forward until the head reaches the front of the bait.
At this point, don’t immediately force the eye through the plastic.
Once the jig is positioned correctly inside the tube, push the eyelet through the plastic. With the raised-eye design, the eye pops through cleanly, leaving enough exposed to easily tie your line.
The end result is a compact, streamlined presentation with the weight concealed inside the tube.
For smaller and moderate-sized tubes, that’s exactly the profile I’m looking for.
My Favorite Tube Rod Setup
Your rod, reel and line combination is extremely important when you’re fishing tubes, particularly when you’re targeting big smallmouth bass.
My favorite tube rod is a 7-foot, 3-inch medium-power, extra-fast-action rod. I consider it a power-finesse setup.
I pair that rod with a 300-size Dhttps://alnk.to/3nllLuVaiwa Ballistic spinning reel and spool it with 10-pound Sufix 832 braid.
That larger spinning reel offers a couple of important advantages.
First, it has a larger spool, which helps tremendously with casting distance. In places like the Great Lakes, there are situations where I’m making extremely long casts with a tube.
The larger spool also helps maintain line pickup after you hook a fish. When you’ve got a big smallmouth hooked a long way from the boat, keeping steady pressure on that fish becomes extremely important.
And, of course, you want a reel with a good, smooth drag. Big smallmouth are incredibly powerful fish, and when one decides to make a run, your drag system has to do its job.
Braid-to-Fluorocarbon Is My System
For my main line, I like 10-pound Sufix 832 braid connected to a fluorocarbon leader with an FG knot.
Leader strength can change depending on the conditions.
In extremely clear water, I may drop down to 8-pound fluorocarbon. I might occasionally go as light as 6-pound, but that’s pretty rare for me.
When I’m specifically targeting big smallmouth bass, 8-pound test is about as light as I generally want to go.
In many situations, I’ll actually lean toward 10-pound fluorocarbon. When you hook a really big fish around rocks, I’d rather have that little bit of additional insurance and know I’m not going to break that fish off.
What’s interesting is that this same basic rod, reel and line combination works almost everywhere.
I can take it to a shallow river, fish the Great Lakes or head out to western reservoirs. It’s an incredibly versatile tube setup.
Bright Braid Helps You Catch More Fish
There’s one other little detail that’s become extremely important to me.
High-visibility braided line.
You’ll notice more anglers fishing bright-colored braid these days, and I’m absolutely sold on it for strike detection.
I like yellow braid because I can see exactly what my line is doing.
That’s a big deal when you’re tube fishing.
When you’re fishing big water, particularly under windy conditions, you aren’t always going to feel a smallmouth pick up the bait. You may have a little slack in the line, and sometimes the only indication of a bite is that bright line suddenly jumping, twitching or moving in a direction it shouldn’t.
If you’re only waiting to feel the bite through the rod, you can miss fish.
Watch your line.
That visual strike detection can make an enormous difference in your tube fishing.
Don’t Overcomplicate Tube Fishing
That’s probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned after fishing tubes for so many years.
Don’t make this technique more complicated than it needs to be.
Choose a tube that matches the forage and fish you’re targeting. Select a jig weight that’s heavy enough to maintain bottom contact without constantly wedging into the rocks. Use a sensitive rod, quality spinning reel, braid and an appropriate fluorocarbon leader.
Then get that bait down where the fish are feeding.
Smallmouth bass spend an enormous amount of time relating to bottom-oriented forage, and a tube naturally works right in that zone.
Sometimes they’ll absolutely crush it.
Other times the bite is so subtle that all you’ll see is your bright braid twitch.
Either way, the tube continues to catch them.
A Smallmouth Classic for a Reason
Fishing tackle continues to evolve at an incredible pace. We’ve got sophisticated electronics, new soft plastics, new jig designs and more specialized finesse techniques than we’ve ever had before.
I use all of them.
But new doesn’t necessarily mean better every day.
There’s a reason I’ve been sold on tubes for years and years. They’re simple, versatile and they imitate a wide variety of things that smallmouth bass naturally eat.
Gobies, crawdads and other prey species — a tube can resemble all of them.
Most importantly, tubes catch big smallmouth.
Whether I’m fishing here in central Minnesota, working a shallow river, making long casts on the Great Lakes or fishing a western reservoir, there’s going to be a tube rigged and ready somewhere on my boat.
With all of the finesse systems we have available today, that’s saying something.
When it comes to catching big smallmouth bass across North America, the tube is still unquestionably one of my first choices.