Chicken Rig Your Craw

Chicken Rig Your Craw

Most of you know something about the chicken rig. Traditionally, the chicken rig was a weedless way to Neko rig a straight tail worm. I’m in love with doing that but I’ve expanded the concept to include one of the most effective and natural looking bass baits on the planet — the craw.  We’ll start with the hook. My favorite, by far, is the VMC Finesse Neko hook. The thing I really like about it is that there are two pieces of heavy fluorocarbon line on the top of the shaft of the hook up towards the eye. That keeps […]

My Secret Spring Bass Lure

My Secret Spring Bass Lure

This is one of the toughest blogs I’ve ever written. The bait I’m about to tell you about has been my money springtime bait for many years. I’ve always kept it a secret. I hate to give it up, but you’re my fans. I want to help you catch more bass this spring. I guarantee you this will do it. It’s good for prespawn, spawning and postspawn bass as well as when you’re fishing behind another boat. You’ll catch bass that you didn’t know were there and bass that won’t bite anything else. And, it’s inexpensive and easy to rig. […]

The Greatest Bass Lure Ever Invented

The Greatest Bass Lure Ever Invented

What’s the greatest bass lure ever invented? That’s the one question I’m asked most often, and it’s a tough one considering all the lures that are out there. So, in order to answer that question I have to take the following factors into consideration: The lure has to be effective in all four seasons and all those times in between those seasons. The lure has to be effective in any water temperature. The lure has to be effective anywhere it’s fished — reservoirs, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.The lure has to be effective in any type of water conditions — […]

Old School Baits That Never Go Away

Old School Baits That Never Go Away

I get asked all the time for my recommendation on old school baits that still work today. There are a lot of them around, and I own several of almost every one ever made. Still, I have favorites. In no particular order, here are my top three… The Rapala Original Floating Minnow  I don’t really know how old these things are but I can say they’ve been around forever. I had one as one of the first bass fishing lures I ever owned. It caught fish back then, and it’ll catch them now. They come in a lot of sizes. […]

The Ultimate Cold Water Bait

The Ultimate Cold Water Bait

This is one technique I never wanted to give up to anyone, but you fellow bass-heads make all of this possible, so it’s only right that I let you in on one of my most effective cold water techniques. That is the Rapala Shallow Shad Rap. It’s the perfect crankbait for cold water conditions. It has a tight wiggle and no rattle. I do, however, modify it a little bit. First off, by cold water I mean anything from the middle 50-degree range on down. And, by little modifications I mean swapping out hooks and adding a split ring or […]

My Bait for Extreme Conditions

My Bait for Extreme Conditions

Here we go, guys. We all know that spring is almost here. That’s a good thing, but it also presents us with problems — wild weather and extreme conditions. On Monday it might be a picture-perfect day, but on Tuesday it’ll be spitting ice and snow. When that happens I reach for the one bait I know they’ll eat — a hair jig. I’m talking about when all of the standard finesse baits and techniques don’t get you even one bite. The thing is, though, about hair jigs is that no lure made has more small, seemingly insignificant differences to […]

Wintertime Colors

Wintertime Colors

It’s getting late into the winter. Depending on where you live spring is right around the corner, or it’s still weeks away. Regardless of that, something has happened to everything that lives in the water. Their colors are getting dull, almost like they’ve been bleached. And that has a serious effect of how the bass relate to our lures. If we want to catch our share, or more than our share, we need to fish with dull colors. I have six favorites — three hard bait colors, three soft plastic colors — that have worked for me over the years. […]

Try Spoons for a Hot Winter Bite!

Try Spoons for a Hot Winter Bite!

Here we go: This is the last of my three-part series on heavy metal baits for wintertime fishing. It’s going to cover the venerable spoon. It’s a lure that’s been around for hundreds of years but it still catches bass. We’re not talking about just any spoon, though. It’s winter. The water is cold. I’m talking specifically about a flutter spoon. It’s the perfect imitation of a big dying baitfish. The one I like the best — it’s elongated, cupped and for the most part already tricked out — is the Molix Mike Iaconelli Lover Spoon. It comes in a […]

Jerkbait Choices for Right Now!

Jerkbait Choices for Right Now!

OK, so the water’s cold and the air is even colder. I don’t care. I want to go fishing. And, I want to catch some bass so I’m going to break out my jerkbait box. They’re one of my go-to baits for right now. But, I don’t carry just one size, shape or type. No, I carry a whole collection of them. The differences between them might be subtle, but they’re important. Let me say it again: Subtle differences are important in cold water. Don’t forget that! I carry at least three different ones for three different sets of conditions. […]

Tailspinners are for Right Now!

Tailspinners are for Right Now!

Last time we talked about blade baits. This week we’ll talk about a forgotten lure — the tailspinner. Do you remember the Little George from back in the 70s? Well, that style of lure will still catch ‘em in the winter. The difference is that we now have a modernized version made by Molix. It’s called the Trago Spin Tail. There are three things that make this lure the best, in my opinion. The first is that, like the Trago Vib Blade Bait, it has a flat head. This gives it stability on the fall or retrieve and makes it […]