You better tighten that drag up those smallies will burn up a good reel! LOL Looks like a lot of fun. My best friend who passed 3 years ago this month and I used to love going to the Buffalo River and Crooked Creek and fish for smallmouth but we always used small crawdad crank baits. I don't know if Hellgrammite baits are better but we sure caught a lot of fish. Those were good times for sure.