Smallmouth bass in near-optimum clear water (21 °C): which lure gets eaten
The smallmouth bass model is shown 11 generic lure archetypes, each tried in all eight colours, under one fixed set of conditions. 7 of 11 get eaten. The square-bill ranks first, eaten in 7 of 8 colours. The lipless rattle is outside what the Tank models and is listed unranked.
- Species
- Smallmouth bass
- Water temp
- 21 °C · near optimum
- Water
- Clear water
- Mood
- Neutral fish
- Depth · light
- 2 m · noon
- Retrieve
- 1.0 m/s
- Metabolism
- 100%
- Eaten
- 7 / 11
The ranking
Ordered by how far through detect → approach → track → commit each lure got, then by how strongly. Each lure is shown in its best-scoring colour. The verdict, reason and fix are the model's own words; the same text you get in The Fish.
- 01Square-bill80 mm · wobble 5.4
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 56% commitment at 21°C on a 80mm profile.
Size and action are both matched to the forage base. This is the presentation.
- 02Medium diver80 mm · wobble 3.8
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 56% commitment at 21°C on a 80mm profile.
Size and action are both matched to the forage base. This is the presentation.
- 03Flat-side80 mm · wobble 1.0
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 35% commitment at 21°C on a 80mm profile.
Size and action are both matched to the forage base. This is the presentation.
- 04Wakebait120 mm · wobble 8.7
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 35% commitment at 21°C on a 120mm profile.
It worked, but the size match is loose — closer to the forage base would raise the odds.
- 05Deep diver110 mm · wobble 9.0
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 33% commitment at 21°C on a 110mm profile.
Size and action are both matched to the forage base. This is the presentation.
- 06Jerkbait120 mm · wobble 0.8
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 31% commitment at 21°C on a 120mm profile.
It worked, but the size match is loose — closer to the forage base would raise the odds.
- 07Trout minnow60 mm · wobble 1.0
Eaten.
EatenTracked it, closed, and ate it. 31% commitment at 21°C on a 60mm profile.
Size and action are both matched to the forage base. This is the presentation.
- 08Pike bait150 mm · wobble 6.2
Refused at close range.
RefusedClose inspection, no commitment. Nothing is badly wrong; nothing is quite right either.
Loosen the action slightly, or present it where the fish has less time to look — cover, low light, dirtier water.
- 09Micro crank30 mm · wobble 0.1
Followed, then refused.
FollowedToo little action. At 0.1 it barely moves, and a bait that does not move reads as dead.
Loosen it: more lip area, or take out some low ballast.
- 10Top-heavy fail80 mm · wobble 0.0
It never got a look.
Rolled overThe bait is lying on its side and skating. Fish ignore it because nothing in the water moves like that.
Move ballast below the centreline until the Tank says it swims.
- 11No-lip control80 mm · wobble 0.0
No driven action.
—This lure has no working lip and line tie pair to make it swim on a steady retrieve.
Add a lip below the line tie, then check the swim test in the Tank.
- —Lipless rattle100 mm
Not ranked
Outside the modelIts action comes from body shape, which the Tank does not model: it only scores wobble from lip drag, so it reads this bait as having no action. The fish model is never shown a fair version of it, so it is listed here and not ranked.
Why it came out this way
At 21 °C the model runs a smallmouth bass at 100% of peak metabolism (optimum 21 °C, feeds between 5 and 29 °C), which caps its chase at 1.5 m/s. Every lure here is retrieved at 1.0 m/s, or just under the fish's top chase speed if that is lower: 1.0 m/s in this scenario. The page tests the lure rather than the reel.
- 1 of 11 never swam properly, so the fish model never got a look at them. That is a Tank verdict, the same in every scenario.
How the Tank decides a bait swims → - 1 of 11 were followed and refused on action: outside the 3–7 wobble range the model gives this species, or too stiff to read as alive.
What decides a lure’s action → - 1 of 11 got all the way to the fish and were refused on inspection: close enough to look, not compelling enough to eat.
The commit stage →
Change one thing
The same smallmouth bass, with a single condition changed.
This page is model output, not field data. The species values behind it, including temperatures, prey sizes, preferred action and reaction distance, are working assumptions that have not been calibrated against observations. The lures are generic archetypes, not products. Read where this model is wrong before trusting a ranking, and treat it as a hypothesis to test on the water.