Category: Fishing Lures

Discussion about fishing lures used to catch bass.

Fall & Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 3: Spinnerbaits

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Fall & Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 3: Spinnerbaits

The thing about spinnerbaits is that they are versatile. I know that you’ve heard and read things that say they’ve been replaced by other lures. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They’ve caught bass for decades and they’ll be catching them for decades into the future. One of the best things about a spinnerbait is that it can be fished on the fall or horizontal. I’m partial to the horizontal presentation and it works best in the fall and early winter, so I’ll talk about it. Lots of times you’ll see baitfish on top in the early morning before […]

Fall And Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 2: Walking Sticks

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Fall And Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 2: Walking Sticks

Last time we talked about buzzbaits. This time we’ll look at walking sticks. The allure of a simple stick sliding from side to side across the water’s surface is something we humans don’t fully understand. My thinking is that it looks exactly like a baitfish feeding along the surface. Other anglers believe it looks like something — anything — in distress so a bass strikes at it out of instinct. I say simple stick because that’s what I like to fish. In truth, however, you can walk any number of baits if you have the experience. But, we aren’t going […]

Fall/Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 1

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Fall/Early Winter Bait Choices, Part 1

We’ve had a few cold nights here in New Jersey. Fall has arrived. I’m excited about that because it’s one of my favorite times to fish for bass. Big or little, they’re aggressive so you don’t need a tackle box that weighs 40 pounds to catch them.  All you need to do is find the forage and throw any of the five baits I’m going to tell you about over the next month. You can’t put too much importance on what I just said about the forage. There is no time — and I do mean NO time — of […]

Fall Bassin’ Calls for a Plastic Minnow-like Jerkbait

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Fall Bassin’ Calls for a Plastic Minnow-like Jerkbait

I fish a plastic minnow-like jerkbait under almost any conditions from now until the water gets real cold, and even then one will get you a few bites. The only time I don’t fish one is when the water’s real cloudy or muddy. They don’t work very well for me under those conditions. Basically, I rig my bait one of two ways. The first is with a 4/0 or 5/0 offset worm hook in the usual manner. If I want the bait to ride high and touch the surface occasionally, I’ll push the hook into the plastic all the way […]

Pick the Right Treble Hook

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Pick the Right Treble Hook

I’m asked a lot about how to pick the right style of treble hook. The answer is pretty easy, really. There are three basic styles of treble hooks. There’s the traditional round bend where the hook point is away from the shaft. That’s the first one. Then, there’s the extra wide gap (EWG) style where the hook point is bent back towards the shaft. That’s the second one.  And finally, there’s a hybrid design. I use all three depending upon what’s happening with the fish, and regardless of what type of lure I’m using. The round bend is at its […]

Another Look at Blade Baits

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Another Look at Blade Baits

We’ve talked about blade baits in the past but I think we should take another look at them, especially now that we’re heading into fall. A lot of guys fish blade baits only one way. They throw them out, let them sink to the bottom, rip ‘em up as hard as they can and then let them fall back down on a slack line. You can catch a few that way. There’s no doubt about that, but there are other ways that’ll catch more than a few. I go with three basic techniques when I’m fishing a blade bait. The […]

Smallmouth Bass and Scent

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Smallmouth Bass and Scent

Those of you have been following what I write and preach know that I’m a big believer in scent products. Some anglers think they attract bass. Others think they mask foreign odors. I say that misses the point. What they really do is work. Nowhere is that more true than with smallmouth. All bass use their senses to eat. They feel with their lateral lines, they hear some way, they feel and they can see. They also have a sense of smell and taste. Smallmouth bass seem to be able to smell and taste better than any of the others, […]

My ICAST pick: The Berkley Powerbait Bearded Grass Pig

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My ICAST pick: The Berkley Powerbait Bearded Grass Pig

Every so often something comes along that I would use even if it wasn’t made by a sponsor. That’s the way I feel about the new Berkley Powerbait Bearded Grass Pig Swimbait. It’s a true upgrade to the swimbait class of plastics. The best way to describe it is to say it’s a new design based on the original Grass Pig — a more traditional-type plastic swimbait — that adds a skirt at the front along with a collar that’ll secure everything. The skirt and collar give this design a fuller body and helps create a bigger, more robust profile […]

My ICAST pick: The Rapala RipStop

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My ICAST pick: The Rapala RipStop

Sometimes a concept comes to reality and that reality creates something special. That’s what happened when we designed the new Rapala RipStop. Probably the best way to describe it is to say it’s a finesse jerkbait with a special tail that makes a world of difference in how it performs and in what the bass sees when it’s in the water. It’s new so it won’t be available for a few weeks but when it is I’d strongly suggest you put a couple of them in your tackle box. They’re 3.5-inches long and weigh 1/4-ounce. The initial offering will be […]

My ICAST pick: The Berkley Maxscent

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My ICAST pick: The Berkley Maxscent

The new things that catch my eye at tackle shows like ICAST and really get my attention aren’t the new colors, sizes or minor modifications to existing baits. Anybody can do that. I’m not saying that those things don’t matter. They do, and they often make an existing product better. But the stuff that’s on the cutting edge of bass fishing is what gets me going. Berkley’s PowerBait Maxscent soft baits are in that category. They’ll be a game-changer. I’m sure of it. You’ll notice I called it a soft bait, not a plastic bait. The reason for that is […]