It’s heating up throughout the country, and with summertime nearly here, bass are mostly post-spawn, even in much of the north. Normally I give you two monthly suggestions for the northern fisheries and two for the southern fisheries, but this time I’m not going to split it up. Wherever you live there are four iconic lures that dominate in June. All four of these baits have similar characteristics: (1) they get a little deeper; (2) they’re big and bulky to help fish recover from the rigors of spawning; and (3) they can help you cover water and locate fish that […]
If you’ve watched any of my videos or read some of my past blogs, you know that I’m really big on how baits move. Whether it’s side-to-side, up-and-down, or just simple undulation, slight variations are often the difference between a great day and simply a good one. But what if I told you that I had a soft plastic presentation that moves differently than anything else out there? You’d be crazy not to listen. When you get to the typical highly-pressured lake on a Saturday morning, there may be 20 guys throwing Texas Rigs and 20 more guys throwing Carolina […]
Most bass anglers know about fluke-style soft plastics. They can be deadly from coast to coast in a variety of circumstances. However, most of them rig it in a similar manner. What I want to tell you about today is a rigging method that’s new and which gives these already-effective lures a unique side-to-side action. It’s something that’s super easy to do, and you probably already have the components in your garage or your boat. Start with a simple soft plastic jerkbait in a reasonably large size—4-, 5- or even 6-inches. I like the Berkley Powerbait Jerk Shad, but there […]
May is really one of my favorite months of the year to fish for bass no matter where I find myself in the country. Depending on where you are, it’s either the late spring or the front side of the summer and that’s a terrific time to catch fish. Today I want to share with you four baits that never leave my boat in May. Two of them are primarily for north of the Mason-Dixon Line (from Virginia and Maryland on up) and two are for south of it (from the Carolinas on down to Texas and Florida). Actually, the […]
While a crankbait is a great choice for transient prespawn bass, it’s not the best option in every circumstance. Another lure that just about never leaves my deck this time of year, especially if I’m around big fish in stained to dirty water, is a spinnerbait. We tend to have a lot of rain early in the season and the water gets color quickly, so this is one I can’t live without. It’s been cold, but now water and air temperatures are creeping up. The days are longer, with more daylight. Those fish want to be headed toward their spawning […]
When bass are moving from their wintertime habitat toward the spawning grounds, a crankbait can be a great lure not just for numbers, but also for big fish. Those fat females are full of eggs and they’re feeding up to have the energy to reproduce. When I think of this time period – no matter where in the country you’re fishing – the water temperatures are still comparatively cold but warming and the fish are moving. Moving fish love a moving bait, and you have to cover water, so the crankbait is the perfect tool, but not just any crankbait […]
When I think of the best months of the year for bass fishing, March is at the top of the list. Of course, the bass are doing different things in different parts of the country, but almost everywhere, they’re big and they’re biting. North of the Mason-Dixon Line – from Virginia on up – the bass are still in their pre-spawn movements. They’re coming shallow, closer to their spawning grounds, but not yet spawning. South of the line, March means spawning fish. They’ll have moved shallow, crashing the bank. Either they’re setting up on shallower cover or actually on the […]
When the water is cold, or cold but warming up, a lipless crankbait is an absolute killer. There’s a misconception that it’s only good in the spring. I hear that all the time, but this is a lure that works in all four seasons. It’s during the winter and pre-spawn when it really shines, though. abyLet’s back up for a second. What is a lipless crankbait? Well, as the name suggests, and you probably guessed if you didn’t already know, it’s hard-bodied like a crankbait, minus one thing…The lip! It’s that design that makes it so effective for bass because […]
In many of my previous articles discussing wintertime techniques I’ve been focused on comparatively deep water scenarios and the tools to attack them. But what about places where it typically doesn’t get very cold? Or where there’s not a lot of deep water? In Florida, 5 feet may be considered “deep.” On the Louisiana Delta lots of bass live their entire lives in water shallower than that. Whether you live in one of those places, or in California or South Texas, the reaction of the fish to cold fronts may not be to go offshore, but rather to bury deep […]
If you’re a hard core bass angler, you probably don’t stop fishing just because the water is cold, and you know that one of the best wintertime categories of lures is typically referred to as “metal.” That describes them perfectly, because all of them are simply a hunk of metal shaped to resemble a baitfish. They are the deal when the water is cold, and start to become a player when the water is mid-50s or lower. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t have at least one tied on under the right conditions, but it’s also critical to […]
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