cold water smallmouth

As the water cools into the fifties I begin to use more and more a lure I haven't used all year, The hair jig. By mid october fully half of my fishing is done with one of two different kinds of hair jig. The one I use the most is a light marabou jig, normally a 1/8 ounce but I will go down to a 1/16th. I like the 1/16th ounce jig but it's hard to get close enough to the fish to cast it so most times I throw the 1/8 ounce jig. I carry them mostly in two colors. A light grey one and a black one. Somedays the color makes a difference but most of the time if you put a marabou jig of any color in front of a fall smallie he will eat it. The light weight and bouyancy of the marabou jig means you can fish it much slower than say a plastic grub without it getting snagged. Most people think of the jig as a deep water lure but a marabou jig is very much at home in shallow water. Smallmouth in the river often still move up much shallower than you would think late into the fall. The same places you would fish a minnow plug or a roostertail earlier in the year are prime places to throw a marabou jig in fall. The other type jig I throw in fall is a heavier 1/4 ounce bucktail tied with bear hair with a bit of mylar mixed in for a subtle flash. This I fish in deeper water and places I can't reach with the lighter marabou jig. The bucktail is more bouyant than a grub and you can fish it a bit slower. But the difference is not much as with the marabou jig and many days a plastic grub will fish just as well and the bucktails I tie myself and hate to lose to a snag. Smallmouth will take a hair jig even in the cold water period when most of us think they're laying dormant on the bottom too inactive to eat. Wrong! They're never too lethargic to eat, just to chase. This fall throw a jig at em, I promise you that you will catch more and bigger smallies...