Rex11555 Loc: Kokomo, Indiana

Any advice for Midwest fall fishing? Was told softcrawl are best for small mouth bass in streams.

Whitey Loc: Southeast ohio

Welcome to the stage Rex, sounds good let us know how you do and share your pictures

John Brown Loc: Indiana

While soft craws are wonderful, I’ve caught many small outs in Indiana streams and rivers, and never used them. If you catch some grasshoppers (usually comatose on the top of tall weeds when covered with dew) or even crickets they’ll do fine, thou the crickets may end up getting bluegills and crappie.

But ignoring lures, since you’re talking live bait, if rely heavily on bass minnows and night crawlers. And don’t ball the night crawlers up on the hook. Hook it at the very tip of the head, and *maybe* a second time very close to that. If you get a bite and it takes the tail it’s a bluegill.

Good luck. By the way, the Fawn and pigeon rivers in northern Indiana are great for Smallies.

Billy Bob Loc: Terre Haute,IN

We fish Sugar Creek for smallies. We don't use live bait, but as far as artificial baits we use small crank baits little N, cotton cordell and a really good one Rebel's small crawdad crank baits. Color can be very important with crawdad type baits so match the hatch as close as possible. All other minnow type baits we use chrome. Early small 1/8 oz buzzers can be deadly. On soft baits we have found the Bitsy Tube by Strike King in green pumpkin with 1/8 oz jig head. They will bite this tube when ignoring everything else.

Michael Welsh Loc: Indiana

I have to agree with Billy Bob, on artificial baits. But if your going live bait, try leeches. I fish Sugar Creek also. The Steike King tube jigs is all I use 3 1/2 inch green pumpkin with red flakes. My buddy and I have caught up to 60 smallies in 1 trip. Good luck.