May 13, 2019

My Three Favorite River Baits with Brandon Palaniuk

Brandon Palaniuk river fishing

I like a Molix Kento jig, because I can fish it in so many different types of cover on a river. I can:

slow the jig down and crawl it on the bottom;
speed it up and swim it over the top of grass, through lily pads and around trees and stumps;
flip it into dense cover or vegetation;
change the style and the color of the trailer on the back of the jig;
and switch the skirt or the head color.

One of the reasons that most professional anglers will choose a jig for river fishing is because there are few places that you can’t fish a jig successfully. You also have many different ways to modify the jig to fish any type of cover, structure or water depth that you want.

My second lure for river fishing will be a Storm Arashi. I have a lot of confidence in this crankbait, because I’ve fished it quite a bit on both rivers and lakes. One of the advantages of this lure is that it has a self-tuning line tie on it, which makes it easy to swim around or through cover. A crankbait is also appropriate anytime you’re fishing rocks, wood, underwater grass, points and/or ledges. I can fish this crankbait in the fall as well as the spring and summer. To fish on a river, I want a lure that will be appropriate for the type of cover that I expect to find. This crankbait fits that niche.

My third choice for a river lure is a Molix Venator spinner bait. This spinner bait has a really good wire in it that lasts a long time. It has super-high quality components and especially good hooks. I can fish it successfully in current, through eddy breaks, along wing dams, over and through log jams and in almost any other type of structure or cover that I may encounter when I’m fishing a river.

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