Bluegill. Bluegill are great baitfish if you're looking to catch personal bests. They're larger, heartier fish in comparison to a trophy-sized bass's mouth, and they're far more appetizing to such large bass compared to minnows and other small baitfish.
Big bass eat rather big meals. With supplemental stockings of threadfin shad and tilapia each spring, and occasionally some bluegills, prey abundance was higher than what a lake might normally produce. Fall diets showed some tilapia, but a much higher proportion of sunfish species, including Largemouth bass.
1. Wacky-Rigged Worm (Yum Dinger) When the bass are finicky in the early spring or late fall, the wacky-rigged Yum Dinger is a solid go-to. The soft, subtle fall is irresistible to bass holding tight in structure or along the shallows.
Some good baits include crayfish, shad, and bluegill (where legal). Generally, any small fish that is legal to use should get attacked by a bass. Whatever type of bait you use, it needs to be lively. Bass very rarely hit dead bait.
At this time of year large static baits such as crab, squid or mackerel are most productive when fished in harbours or the lower reaches. Between June and August, bass may be caught well into freshwater and will take maggot, bread, plugs, prawns, mackerel, squid and baited spinners.
While jigging spoons provide great opportunities to catch fish in extremely deep water, the flutter spoon provides an excellent way to match the hatch and capitalize on bass gorging at depths of 10–20 ft.
Bass fishing hook sizes range between 1, 1/0 and 2/0. The smaller size is perfect for worms around 6 inches, while the larger is better for 8-inch worms or 6-inch lizards. Using those baits, your bass fishing hook sizes will also hold a fish capable of eating the bait.
A bass sees all shades of blue as essentially the same (provided, of course, the colors have the same brightness). The same is true for subtle variations in dark purple or dark red lures.
Small bass will bite just about anything tied on the end of a fishing line. Artificial baits such a spinners, jigs, beetle spins, plastic worms, and surface lures are deadly. Yellow, purple, and black are the preferred colors. Natural baits such as minnows, worms, frogs, crayfish, and grasshoppers will also catch bass.
“Smallmouth like to scrap,” avid bass angler Sam Brown said. “They hit topwater lures and flies like a possessed, sentient missile, and once you hook them, you've got to earn every inch.
“If they are available, threadfin shad are probably the favorite food of largemouth bass. We find them in bass stomachs more than anything else,” says Cross. “Shad are soft-rayed fish, which means their fins aren't as spiny as, say, a bluegill's. Soft-rayed fish are easier to swallow.”
The best month overall is May, which typically means post-spawn fishing. Fish are scattered between shallow and medium depths. During May, warmer water temperatures boost fish metabolism, making them hungrier, yet the water temperature is not yet hot enough to stress the fish.
Lure fishing in the winter is tougher, but many species are around still, including bass, just in lower numbers. Some species are more plentiful in winter than summer, like herring. Try utilising the guides on this site to target a wider range of species to increase your chances of catching in winter.
Is it better to fish for bass at high or low tide?
Sometimes it's mark specific. Got a mark that fishes best 2 hrs down to low tide. Also some estuaries flow is everything. They sit in eddies and slack water waiting to ambush smelt and sandeel being washed down in the current.
Often, poppers are very short and fat and sliders have long bodies. Since most bait fish in the UK have long bodies, sliders like the Pachinko or the Savage Gear Surface Walker are the best surface bass lures for the UK.
Outside of red and green, many dark colors appear quite similar to bass, which are unable to make highly selective decisions based on those dark colors like blue and black. Likewise, bass cannot readily distinguish between very bright colors, like chartreuse and white.
Go for colors that are either extremely bright or very dark. Best Colors for Muddy Water: Black and Red: Dark colors like black create a strong silhouette that's easier for bass to see against the light filtering through muddy water.
Spoons come in all sorts of colors, but I stick with the basics for bass. Generally, you don't use a jigging spoon in dirty water, but if it is a bit dingy, or cloudy, a white or gold spoon is the way to go.
The two flavors you want to look at as a bass angler are called Bass and Garlic. However, you can find trout, catfish, and a variety of other flavors. If you opt for the garlic-flavored variety, keep in mind that catfish tend to go after it, too.
