There are exceptions to the skirted jigs-heavy cover relationship. Some of my most productive early-spring largemouth fishing has been on coverless flats adjacent to secondary creek channels.

During warming trends, 4- to 6-pound largemouths hit the flats to feed. The hot lure is usually a small, skirted jig -- 1/4 to 3/8 ounce -- dressed with a pork trailer and hopped across the flat.

Simple yet deadly offerings, bucktail jigs are composed of a leadhead jig with a 3-inch body made of hair, such as deer hair. Though natural bucktail works well, the hair can be dyed a variety of colors. Commonly, the head of the jig is painted, too, often complete with eyes.

If one word summed up the attributes of the bucktail jig, it would be versatility. A bucktail can be jigged, swam, snap-jigged and vertically jigged. It can be worked around cover and in open water. One of the primary attractions of a bucktail is the way the hair "breathes" underwater. This action suggests a living creature.

Bucktails can be fished bare, or may be tipped with a live or artificial trailer.

Bass, smallmouths in particular, will often go on a bucktail bite, and at times, these jigs heavily outproduce other presentations. I've seen this happen on natural lakes during the pre-spawn period when the fish were holding in short, newly emerging grass along a dropoff. By snap-jigging bucktails as the wind pushed the boat along the dropoff, good numbers of 2- to 4- pound smallies were taken. Bucktails work best fished on medium-power spinning rods with a fairly fast action. A good outfit is a 6-foot rod coupled with 8-pound-test copolymer line.

TUBE BODIES
Soft-bodied tube lures are also versatile bass baits, applicable in many early-season scenarios. Whether you're fishing the thick cover of a reservoir to a quiet eddy on a smallmouth stream, tubes are something every bass angler should carry throughout the season, especially during the spring.

As the name implies, the tube lure is a hollow, cylindrical soft-bodied bait that measures 3 to 4 inches long (in models intended for bass). The tail of the tube is tentacle-like, often called a broom tail. Tube bodies may be found in a vast array of colors.

On the flowing waters that are home to smallmouth bass, quiet pockets close to shore tend to collect fish at this time. River and stream smallies will be found in faster water during the summer, but springtime fish tend to shy away from strong current. Bank sections crowded with rocks or boulders often provide the current breaks smallies prefer at this time.