I love fishing for bass in the Spring! Bass are as big as they are going to get all year and as water temperatures warm and bass prepare to spawn, the bite can be amazing! By early May in the Pacific Northwest, with water temperatures around 60 degrees in many lakes, you can easily catch and release twenty-five bass a day. Here are five lures I love to use in the spring to help me get that done.
FOOTBALL HEAD JIG
A weedless jig is a lure that works all year long. The football head jig can be pitched or flipped into a variety of places bass like to hang out to include under docks, into brushy cover, rocky or gravel areas, beaver huts, flooded timber and the list goes on. I like to use a quarter, 3/8th ounce or half-ounce jig depending on how deep I am fishing.
One way to fish a football jig is to let it hit bottom and then slowly jig it back towards you. Most bites occur as the jig falls back towards the bottom. Another way is to us a sweeping motion with your rod, allowing the jig to drag across the bottom.
I always put a soft plastic trailer on any jig I am fishing with for bass. Good colors to use are black and blue or a green pumpkin.
CHATTERBAIT
A lot of bass anglers swear by the chatterbait for springtime fishing. This bait features a metal blade on top of the jig head that flashes and vibrates through the water. The chatterbait was popularized by Z-Man, and their original Z-Man ChatterBait still catches fish, especially in the spring. Many anglers, me included, let the chatterbait fall to the bottom and then retrieve it at a moderate pace next to brush or weed lines or near woody structure. If that does not work, try a very fast retrieve, even in colder water. That is a tactic Kyle Clark, an avid tournament bass angler and the owner of PNW Fishing Adventures, swears by.
A three-eighth to half-ounce chatterbait is a popular size to fish at depths of 10 feet or less. Popular colors are white, brown/black, black & blue and in stained water, chartreuse.
SENKO
When the bass are on their spawning beds a soft plastic worm called a Senko is hard to beat. This is a shallow water offering and precise casting while sight fishing for bass is a key to success. The number one color to fish is green pumpkin but at times, a purple worm with blue fleck can outshine the green pumpkin. I personally like to fish with a five-inch Berkley Powerbait Senko called The General, because the bass seem to hold onto it longer. However, many other serious bass anglers prefer Senko baits made by Yamamoto.
The Senko should be fished without weight. You can fish it Texas rigged through the nose and watch it slowly fall towards where the bass are. Others will fish it wacky rigged, with a hook right through the middle of the worm. The way a wacky rigged worm falls triggers vicious strikes from bass as it slowly undulates down through the water. Use a #2 or #1 Wacky hook and if you can find ones with wire weed guards that will help prevent some of the snags, you’ll encounter fishing around flooded timber and shrubs.
LIPLESS CRANKBAIT
The lipless crankbait can be fished in cool waters but really starts to prove itself when the water temperature hits 55 degrees. Bill Lewis came out with the original Rat-L-Trap decades ago. This is a hard lure with a slim profile designed to produce a very tight wiggle. BBs inside the lure provide a rattle as the lure is retrieved.
A lipless crankbait is a great search bait because it can be cast a long distance, and you can cover a lot of water looking for schools of largemouth or smallmouth bass. In the latter half of spring (and all the way into autumn) you can fish the lure with either a moderate or rapid retrieve. Very short pauses as you retrieve often trigger strikes. I like to fish this lure along rocky riprap or just outside the edges of cover like flooded willows or weed lines.
A number of companies manufacture lipless crankbaits. In recent years, I have gravitated to the Berkley War Pig. I have a couple of plastic tackle boxes filled with half ounce, three-inch War Pigs in a variety of colors and they have become a true high-confidence lure for me. In the spring red can be a good color or you can match the hatch and try fishing lures that imitate trout, perch, bluegill, or bass.
FROG
Never overlook a soft plastic, weedless frog for springtime bass. They are generally made with a hollow body and have hooks on the back of the body. The “legs” of the frog provide action that attracts bass, and if you have a concave face on your lure, a popping retrieve will often attract even more bass.
This is a lure designed to cast into the weeds or lily pads where you would not dare throw a traditional lure. Jerking the lure on top of the water and weeds can generate strikes from bass that erupt out of the water to smash the lure. The number one mistake most anglers make while fishing frogs is to set the hook too soon. As tempting as it is to set that hook when that bass comes out of the water, you need to wait until you feel the weight of the fish at the end of your line. That is when you set the hook with a hard jerk and begin fighting that bass.
Conventional wisdom says frogs (and other top water lures) fish best in the early morning and in the evening. However, a weedless from is a lure you can really fish all day, especially on a cloudy day.
So, there you go, five great lures to help you catch more bass from March through June (and beyond). Fill your tackle box with these staples and make the most of your day on the water with more hook-ups. You’ll be glad you did.
John Kruse
