Top 5 Bass Fishing Techniques
Trying to decide how you plan to fish can be the hardest decision you will make when planning an outing on the water. Most of us do not have unlimited space and if you’re walking along the bank, you are really limited by what you can carry. That is why I always concentrate on fishing my confidence baits and techniques. I always make sure I have a setup with me that can fish multiple techniques. OK, let’s jump into my top 5 Fishing Techniques. It’s no coincidence these are all power fishing techniques.
1) Frog Fishing - What can I say about fishing with a frog. Anyone that has ever thrown a frog knows the excitement of a bass busting out of the water and attacking your frog. For those that haven’t, you need to, and you need to now!! I think my favorite thing about fishing with a topwater frog is you can throw it nearly everywhere. Bass are predators and they love making a surprise attack on their prey. They love to sit under logs, in the grass, and under mats. They sit anywhere they can hide from their prey. Frogs are a category all their own and this isn’t the place to go down that rabbit hole, but I will in future articles. My favorite frogs are the Tataki Frog by 10000 Fish, Check out the link below. For a downsized frog the Booyah Baits Pad Crasher Jr. is my choice.
2) Square Bill - If I am fishing shallow and I don’t have a lot of grass to navigate, the square bill crankbait is hard to beat. They are designed to fish through hard cover and bounce off a hard bottom. Burning the right square bill through the right area can provide some bites you will never forget. If you do happen to get caught up in grass, be ready to swing after your lure busts through the grass. I’ve lost track of the number of fish that have been waiting for my bait on the other side. My favorites in this category are the Evoke 2.0 and 1.2 by Deps and the Lucky Craft LC 1.5. If you are looking for something a little more budget friendly, you really can’t go wrong with the Strike King KVD 1.5.
3) Swimbait – Specifically a big swimbait. There is something different about the bite you get when fishing a lure that has some size to it. If the bass is following, they will run up on it, inhale and run the other way. Also, you will get the bite when the bass freight trains the bait. Either way there is no doubt you have been bit and craziness ensues. In this category, you can spend an extreme amount of money and I am not interested in overspending for anything, especially something that can end up at the bottom of a lake. That is why I have landing on the Megabass Magdraft Freestyle. This is a weedless version of the Magdraft so it can be fished through grass and around hard cover.
4) Walking Bait – This is a favorite for me for many of the same reasons I love fishing frogs. The downside of this bait is where you can fish it. Because of the trebles you need to be careful around grass and wood. I absolutely love fishing this technique in sparse reeds and over the tops of grass and wood. Putting a walking bait in the water about 10 – 20 feet past where you think the bass are sitting and walking it past them can provide some of the biggest blow ups of your fishing life! When it comes to walking baits there are really two that I enjoy the most, but it is certainly a hug category. I am partial to the Heddon Super Spook Boyo in Bone Color because of the fact I always had something from Heddon in my tackle box when I was a kid. I have recently discovered the Teckel Kicknocker. It’s a great bait with a great sound and will certainly have a place in the arsenal but I can’t imagine it surpassing my feeling about the Super Spook Boyo.
5) Jerkbait – The reason I am partial to the jerkbait is because it can be fished all year round. When the water is warm you can really cover water with this technique and when the water cools down you can fish it slowly and create a feed response that no other lure will provide. The class of this category is certainly the Megabass Vision 110 and 110+1. This bait comes in colors you will not see from any other manufacturer and the ability to suspend is remarkable and needed as the water cools down. Another jerkbait that some forget about is the Zoom Super Fluke. This is my go to when I am wanting to fish a jerkbait, but there is just too much grass or wood to be effective. An honorable mention in this category is the old stand by from Rapala, the Original Floating Minnow. I still have one I picked up as a teenager and fish still go nuts over it.
All five of these techniques produce some big bites and even bigger fish. If you are limited in space, you can fish all five of these with two rods. The swimbait and frog and be fished with one heavy rod and the other three can be fished with an all-purpose medium rod. You really do not want to fish the jerkbait or the walking bait with anything heavier than that. I hope you find this information helpful. Make sure you click on the links provided to find out more information about these lures and grab a couple to try out on your own. Hop over to my social media sites to see pictures and videos of these lures in action.
Tight lines – Steve Unger
