Fishing the plastic grub..

I river fish sixty or seventy days a year most years (sometimes twice that) and you won't ever catch me on the water without a three inch plastic grub. If I'm wading and not carrying alot of tackle I might only have a couple colors but one will be smoke metalflake. It just looks so much like a generic minnow in the water with just the right amount of flash and I have caught so many fish with it over the years that I just have alot of confidence in throwing it. I'm also pretty big on the various orangish brown combinations out there because I feel like they look alot like many of the darters and sculpins in the river and bounced along the bottom make an okay crawfish imitation. You can find a plastic grub in almost every color you might imagine and then some. It seems I have owned most of them at one time or another and you wanna know a secret? Most of them catch fish. I guess I'm a presentation first, color second, kind of a guy. However, I'm also certain some colors more than others will improve your chances of catching catching a fish while fishing grubs. Smoke metalflake, motor oil, and clear metalflake are good colors in clear water and on sunny days, especially in the later part of spring and most of fall. These guys closely resemble those of baitfish. Try some grubs grubs in translucent (somewhat clear allowing light to pass through) colors that also include some gold or silver flakes in them. This will add a little flash to their action when the sun is bright. On overcast days metal flakes will lose alot of their flash. I was given some gawd awful pearl gold grubs with gold flakes in them. So ugly they made your eyes hurt, but they catch fish and I use the things all the time. I also find I throw these alot more when I'm fishing by myself and no one is looking but that probably says more about me than the grub. Pumpkin Seed, red or any combination of green, orange, brown and yellow will work to imitate the colors of crawfish. Try and determine the color of the craws in the water you're fishing and go with the closest color to that. I like the grubs that are two toned with one side being orange and the other brown too for the same reason. Chartreuse is an awesome color when you're trying to catch smallmouth bass. Why? I haven't a clue. Chartreuse metalflake is probably the first color I'd buy after smoke metalflake when starting to fish with these things. I realise that flies in the face of the time honored tradition of trying to find out what the fish are feeding on and imitating it. Just remember bass fishing also has an equally time honored tradition of the googly eyed red and white striped creature lure from outer space catching fish. Look at how flyfisherman go about it. Trout fishing they count every leg and appendage on whatever they are imitating. Put the same guy on a smallmouth river and he will be catching fishing on a pink and orange deer hair bug with a yellow tail. I like to think rather than bass being dumber than trout it means they are smart enough to look at that pink and orange monster and reason that "hey I've never seen one but its alive". And being the mean cantakerous bastards they are, then try and eat it. A chartreuse grub is just the essence of that boiled down and wedded to the deadliest river fishing lure there is. And plastic grubs are also dirt cheap, something to consider in todays world of ten dollar crankbaits. Live a little and experiment you just might find a color that produces for you and which can be your own little secret. Just make sure you have some smoke metalflake grubs in your river box too okay? Trust me on that. Most of the time I fish a grub on a plain roundball jighead either a 1/8th ounce or 1/4 depending on the depth and current speed. If I find fish feeding in a run but not on the bottom (white bass alot, sometimes smallies) I'll go to a lighter weight to let the grub swim down the run on a tightline rather than hug the bottom.
I also think sauger, in contrast to most other fish, actually like a bit of resistance when they hit and If I'm catching more sauger than bass I'll fish a quarter ounce jighead. Ill also go heavier in swifter deep water like say below a lowhead dam. I think you almost have to work at fishing a grub wrong, just chucking it out and reeling it in will produce some fish tho most time I try to swim it slowly just off the bottom or let it sweep thru a run on a tightline, again just off the bottom. In slower water like a hole or around a bridge abutment I'll sometimes tightline the grub to the bottom and bring it back in a series of lifts or slow sweeps. This is also a good way to pick up a nice channelcat or two also. Some of the nicest channels I've caught have been on grubs. It certainly wakes you up to be smallmouth fishing and tighten up on a ten pound catfish! That is one of the grubs main strengths, in a river like the Little Miami you might catch any of seven or eight different species of fish on one on any given trip.