The invasive Round Goby invasion of the Great Lakes in the 1990’s shaped smallmouth fisheries forever. Their abundance and blanket of the lake bottom transformed what were once pedestrian and average 2-to-3-pound fish into megalodon specimens now surpassing 7-and-8 pounds. Their infinite food supply continues to this day, where gobies fuel the smallmouth’s sustenance, growth, and expansion. As a result, but not until most recently, a generational shift in bait manufacturing and lure design caught fire with anglers and manufacturers where today nearly every soft plastics manufacturer has created a downsized bottom dweller to match this hatch and other goby lookalikes – native sculpins and darters. What will work for the Great Lakes should also work on inland trophy smallmouth fisheries where gobies are not present. Across Wisconsin’s inland fisheries and several others within a casting distance from the Great Lakes, I’ve attempted bottom bouncing and crawling the lake bottoms with a wide variety of goby imitators. What we do have are native sculpin species inhabiting many of the deepest, clearest, coldest, and rockiest waters. Over the years, I don’t