Muscle beds are havens for smallmouth, which search out this obscure cover in search of crawfish. If you luck up on a shellbed, try these tips.
* Fish a soft-plastic lizard or crawfish when the smallmouth are suspended over the shellbed. Fish lizards on Carolina rigs – each with a 5-foot leader and a 3/4-ounce weight. Use a 7-foot rod with a 12-pound-test main line. The slower you fish a Carolina rig, the more smallmouth you’ll catch.

* Fish rough-bottom shell beds when smallmouth are on the bottom eating the crawfish and shad. Texas-rig a soft-plastic centipede in chartreuse-pepper (a bright color in a compact bait) out over the shell beds, dragging the centipede slowly on the bottom, reel-up the slack, drag the bait, and then reel it again.

* Fish a 3/4-ounce spinnerbait or a Texas-rigged grub with a red hook in late-summer current. The current stirs up the bottom, causing the crawfish and the minnows to feed on the algae. The smallmouth will feed on the crawfish and the minnows by positioning themselves on the ends of humps in front of current, often in a dead spot right in the front of a stump or a log. Fish both the grub and the spinner bait on tight lines. When the bait hits the bottom, make about eight or 10 cranks to swim the bait just above the bottom. Then let the bait flutter back down. A smallmouth will hit the bait most of the time when the bait falls