Matt G:

i don’t know much about fishing on a river but if its isn’t a very fast current or if you find a inlet area were the current is really slow, all the time I’ve been in Minnesota fishing, the pike liked surface lures. If there’s catfish in the river there at the bottom. Sorry can’t help much more.

Artie:

if you live near the river and you have seen it with low water movement you should be able to remember the points sand bars and holes (deeper areas of non moving water) in river fishing always fish up stream bringing your baits into the view of up river facing fish. Predators will hide behind structure where they can scream out and ambush unsuspecting prey. Bass will try and suspend in deeper areas especially if it is in the vicinity of structure like a down tree or a man made wall or bridge standards. Try casting past areas where if you were a fish you would hide and use baits common to your local. Especially trying to get the size and color perfect, leaches, grubs, worms, jig and pigs (for crawdads) crawdads and I use mice quite often I have made many that look similar to one that I own that is over 60 years old. Wood body leather tail and ears topwater lure (Top water baits work amazingly well in slow and calm areas tooI learned before I put on my first football helmet “no guts, no glory” You have to cast into junk brush piles and snagged out logs, branches and caught up junk storms loosen and move downstream. Yeh you will loose some set-ups making casts into unknown submerged structure, but be easy on the loss of invested bait dollars by casting a plain unrigged weight only, it so you can feel the bottom and move the weight along in different distances from shore through that stuff so you can have a good idea where the snags and junk piles are before you put on and loose those all to frequently lost sometimes even expensive baits.
I even do this at lakes too, especially when shore fishing to see what I am going to be dragging the fish I catch through to get them to shore and damned if the fish sometimes even hit the plain weight. So I hook up a really small grub in a similar color and bang it’s on. If there are lizards along say a wall or rock structure or even cliffs too, even if the rocks go right on out into the water making a sort of penninsula, use a plastic lizard and cast it upstream onto any (shore line connected) rock just above the waterline and let it sit there a fish might jump out to take it but you will probably get hit when you slowly peel the bait off the rock and it drops quietly into the current.
so! fish upstream always
bring baits around corners and over sand bars into flowing water fish the upper river side of deeper pools in fact out in front of the deeper areas and let the current drop the bait into the pool, not the cast and what I didn’t mention is being stealth your body when walking next to water is magnified and a dark moving mass which is seen and felt as dangerous by fish try to stay behind trees and low to the ground taking your silouette out of their horizon

Charles Slone (Newest One):

Smallmouth are a little more picky about there meal when thrown into a conversation with their bigger cousin the Largemouth. A Smallmouth Bass will take many soft plastics, in-line spinners, crankbaits & others. Try a soft craw, an imitation of a crayfish or “crawdad”. Every brand imaginable makes ‘em. Check out Bass Pro’s page, and look under “soft plastics” or do a routine search at the top of the page, in the right corner. Other than soft ‘craws, check out some in-line spinners such as the Mepps Aglia, Worden’s Rooster Tail or any lure that has proved itself through the years. Don’t buy some junk that has bad reviews. Always check the reviews before purchasing from an online tackle dealer.
Here’s a website that tells some of the best lures for smallies, and the sizes.

Top Water Baits
Tiny Torpedo: 1-7/8″ length, 1/4 oz, #6 hook size
Heddon® Zara® Spook® Puppy: 3″, 1/4 oz., 1/0 hooks
Excalibur ® Spit’n Image ™: 3″, 5/16 oz., #6 hooks
Floating Rat-L-Trap®: 1/2 oz., #4/#6 hooks
Yo-Zuri ® 3-D ™ Series Bass Lure – 3-D Popper 2-1/2″ , 1/4 oz.

Crank Baits
Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap® Mini-Trap®: 1/4 oz.
Bomber® Model “A”® Shallow Crankbait: 2 1/8″, 1/4 oz., dives 3′-5′, #6 hooks
Excalibur® Fat Free Shad™ Series Hardbaits
Rebel ® Wee Crawfish ™: Dives to 7′, 2″, 1/5 oz., #8 hooks
Yo-Zuri® Hardcore Lures – Hardcore Shad: 2-3/8″ 1/4 oz.

Soft Baits
Case Plastics Magic Stik – 4.5″
Case Plastics Sweet P – 3.75″
Case Plastics Salty Tubes
Case Plastics Magik Stik / Senko
Mad Man Mad Crawfish Worm
Gene Larew Finesse Floating Craw
Bass Assassin® – Shad Assassins: Baby Assassin – 3″
Zoom® Tiny Fluke: 2-3/4″
Zoom® Tube: 3-1/2″

Spinnerbaits
Stanley Jigs® Tunable Titanium Spinnerbaits
Strike King® Compact Premier™ Pro-Model® Spinnerbaits
Terminator® T-1 Spinnerbaits – Tandem
Terminator® Tiny T Spinnerbaits

Jigs
Winco’s W.W. Smallie’s Delight
1/8 oz. Rabbit Hair Jigs
3-4″ SingleTail Grub
NetBait Paca Chunk

Other than that, give a slow presentation when fishing. There’s no such thing as fishing too slow!
Another thing, fish around heavy cover, the bass love the heavy cover. Try stumps & logs, and even lillipads if you want.

For Pike, I’m not a Pike specialist in any means, never caught one(There is no Pike here in southeastern Kentucky) but here’s a great article about Pike Lures.
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?mode=article&objectID=29839&storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1

walleyeslayer1:

Secretary of state is right on! Jig and minnow. I have caught fish from Alaska to the Bahamas on this rig. SOS gets the 10 points on this one.