If you look at every bass fisherman's tackle box, the serious anglers who've been doing this for a long time, you're going to find three types of baits in every single one of them. Why? Because they're easy to use and they are effective. They catch a lot of fish. They're very productive. So let's get into those three types because you're going to need these.
The first one is spinnerbaits. Now, spinnerbaits on the surface, they seem to be real easy to use. You just cast out and wind them back in. It's pretty simple to use. What trips up a lot of anglers is trying to figure out which kind of spinnerbait to throw and when. And that's what I'm going to dive into a little bit here. There's basically four components to consider when you're looking at spinnerbaits. That's weight, that's color, blade, and type of spinnerbaits. So let's get color first of all. Color is really easy. What you're doing here is you're basically mimicking a bait fish. So white is going to be the predominant color. I have fish spinnerbaits all over this country and I've always caught fish on white. So you got to have that. Two other colors is white and chartreuse and chartreuse. Those are used when the water's a little bit more dingy, actually really muddy conditions. It can work very well for that. Plus, if you're fishing just for smallies, boy, they like that chartreuse. So a straight chartreuse skirt works really well for those smallmouth, man. They will crush it. That's it. That's pretty easy in choosing colors.
So let's go to blades. Blades can get confusing. There's three types of...primarily three types of blades. Your Colorado, Indiana, and your Willowleaf blades. Colorado blades are really round. They flash. They got a lot of vibration. They're really known for it. It's just a big thumper blade. It makes the tip of your rod just vibrate. I mean, they put off a lot of vibration in the water, and it doesn't take much to get that blade to move. It has a lot of lift to it, so it can keep the blade up in the water column. These are best used in the cooler months of the year because a lot of times you're slow rolling a bait and you're moving it real slow and you got to keep it upright and you can do it way down towards the bottom of the lake. You can be 20 feet deep or even deeper and just slowly crank it and that blade, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, is working really well in your favor and that calls in the bass from far away. So they work really well in the colder months.
Now, Indiana...actually, let's go to the Willowleaf, and that's on the other end of the spectrum. Willowleaf blade looks more like a baitfish, the shape of it. It doesn't have very much vibration, but boy, it sure puts off a lot of flash. So it kind of gives off this image of a baitfish. So when the bass are actively feeding on baitfish, Willowleaf blades are it. Man, you have a double Willowleaf spinnerbait, that's gonna be your most productive bait during that time of year. Typically, in the summer months and into the fall is when Willowleaf blades work really well. They don't get hung up on weeds, so you can throw them in and around weeds without bringing back a bunch of junk. So they're really good for those type of lakes, and in and around lily pads, and things like that. Willowleaf also works well if you're doing night fishing, especially around docks and marinas that are lit, because it'll reflect that light and it can attract the fish from distances. So, quick little tip there.
Indiana blades are between a Colorado and a Willowleaf. They have a lot of vibration, plus they have a lot of flash. They don't have as much vibration as a Colorado, nor do they have as much flash as a Willowleaf, but they're really good, universal, jack-of-all-trades blades, which is what I throw the majority of the time. You can fish these fast, slow, you can boil them on the surface, you can drag them on the bottom, you can bring them through all kinds of cover and fish them in all kinds of conditions, whether the water's muddy or clear. They work really well. So, to me, they're like the most universal, easy-to-use blade of all for spinnerbaits.
So we've covered color. One more thing about color, by the way, if you do fish at night, one more color to get is a black skirt. Black skirt works well at night. Why? Because at night, everything turns to shades of gray, and a dark black spinnerbait is going to contrast the most against the lighter shades of gray and it's around it. So it shows up the most and it's easiest for the bass to find.
Let's move on now to size. Now three-eighth-ounce size is the most common, the one you'll find most bass anglers throw, and for good reason. It matches the forage size, particularly the summer months through fall. It's like the best size to throw in and around cover, it keeps it up shallow, you can burn it back fast, you can reel it in slow, it's very versatile, universal weight size. But I change sizes outside of those periods. One is during the winter months and in the early spring, a three-quarter-ounce spinnerbait works really well. One because you can get the bait way down deep, but also you can just slow roll it and keep it down there. If you start bringing back a lighter spinnerbait at a certain speed, it'll rise up off the surface off the bottom and come away, whereas a three-quarter-ounce will stay down there. So that works really well. Plus, if I want to burn a bait back really fast during the summer months, I'll use a three-quarter-ounce. Sometimes those three-eighth-ounce spinnerbaits will start to lay over on their side if you burn it really fast across the top of the water column. So a three-quarter-ounce will keep it running straight and true and won't roll over if you're reeling it back really quick. And that can be a killer technique when the bass are really actively feeding, particularly in the early fall.
One other size I'd recommend getting is one you would use right after the spawn, and that's a quarter-ounce spinnerbait. Right after the spawn, like, the four to six weeks after the spawn, man, everything is spawn, right? Bass, walleye, crappie, bluegill, they've all been spawning, carp, whatever you've got in your lake. And so there's a lot of fingerling and fry in the lake at that time, and bass are targeting that. So a smaller-size bait works really well during this window.
The last thing to think about in spinnerbaits is type. There's three types of spinnerbait. Now, the long arm spinnerbait is the one most people are referring to. Some old guys will refer to it as the safety pin lure. That's what my dad still calls them because they look kind of like a safety pin. But anyway, these are the ones most anglers throw. You can see the big wire on it acts like a big weed guard. So that enables you to throw it in these weeds, and wood, and all kinds of stuff when it comes through without getting hung up. So don't be afraid to throw a spinnerbait into that stuff. A lot of times that's where the bass are and you're going to get bit.
There's two other kinds though. One's a short arm spinnerbait, and this is where you can tell the top wire arm is really short. And these work great as a drop bait. The bait falls horizontally down. And a lot of times you have a Indiana or Colorado blade on it. The Colorado blade just helicopters and thumps like a parachute almost as it falls down. This works great in the winter months when the fish are holding off deeper cover or deeper structure like humps, and ridges, and drop-offs. You just throw it along those and let it helicopter down. A lot of times it won't even hit the bottom. They'll hit it before it hits the bottom. It also works in the summer in those same areas, the same presentation. Right, just along deeper water, along those steeper drops, steeper points, that type of thing. Throw it out there and just let it drop on a free line. Watch your line because that's how you'll tell where the buy is. Your line's going to jump. Or if you're throwing in 20 feet of water and you're letting it helicopter down, you know it's about 10 feet down and suddenly it stops dropping. Well, something got it. So pay attention to your line when you're doing that. That's what the short-arm spinnerbaits are for.
And the last kind are the inline spinnerbaits. These are like the rooster tail. They're not as common for bass. They're mostly used for, like, pike, and musky, and trout fishing, and things like that, but they should have a place in your tackle box as well. Sometimes you pull it out of your little kit when you're not catching anything at all. It's sort of a hail mary bait, for me at least, but you can catch a lot of fish on them. Now, they're not weedless. They got a big treble hook on the back, so you can't throw it in those heavy, thick areas. You're just going to get frustrated or maybe lose a few lures. But that slender profile with that little blade on it gives off a little minnow look. And sometimes that's exactly what the bass want. And you can really save the day sometimes if you've throwing a lot of other stuff and the bass don't want anything. That works really well. It worked for me really well. I was in a tournament once and just out of desperation, my partner and I, like, out of four hours, we hadn't caught anything. I pulled out a rooster tail and started catching small fish. They were, like, 13-inchers, nothing to brag about, but got a limit of those and so did my partner. And we ended up taking third and fifth respectively in the tournament. Just because everybody else was struggling and a lot of people blanked, we were able to at least scrape out a few small limits and did well. So, inline spinnerbaits, keep them with you. Color-wise, same thing. White, that's what you want.
So, let's move on to the next kind of bait that you need to have, which is what I call Rat-L-Traps, is vibrating lipless crankbaits. Those work year round and they've been working for decades, man. These are fantastic baits. Don't overlook them. They've actually...they were really, really popular in the '90s and '80s. They've kind of...you don't hear about them as much, but they still work just as good as they used to. Keep them with you. Keep using them. They can be used all year round. Because of the nature of them, and unlike any other crankbait, you can let it sink and flutter, and it vibrates when it falls. And you can be in 10 feet of water, you can be in 40 feet of water, you can fish it at any depth, which is...you can't do that with any other kind of crankbait. And as it falls, it looks like a dying baitfish. This works really good in the fall and the wintertime when bass are keen on dying baitfish. It mimics that behavior and they'll annihilate it. But it also works great in the spring when the fish are up shallow. You can burn it across the top of weeds, you can do it in the summertime along weed edges, along docks. Riprap is very productive, a good area to throw them in all times all throughout the year. They just work. They work really well. Now you don't have to go hog wild with colors or with sizes. You get a half ounce and that's about it. Half ounce is really what I like. Three-eighth ounce, a lot of people like to throw that too, so you can throw those too. But color-wise, there's not a whole lot that...they come in, like, 50 or more different colors. So let's just make it really simple. Chrome with black back or chrome with blue back. That is, like, the most productive, especially if you're in waters that have a lot of small mouth. They just, I don't know what it is, but smallmouth love that. So I always have one of those tied on. There's a couple of other colors you should get. Shad color, like a sexy shad or a Tennessee shad, especially if you have a lot of shad that have a forage base in your lake. Sunfish-type colors, like your bluegills, your perch, anything with chartreuse in it, like a fire tiger color. That's a great color to have. Crawdad, there's brown crawdad and red crawdad. Use the red crawdad when the fish are up shallow and brown crawdad any other depths. And that's about it. You don't really need to go crazy with colors. You don't need to buy all 50 different ones. So just stick with those and catch a ton of fish. And sometimes just cast them out, reel them is all you need to do, but you can slow it down. You can put pauses as you reel and stop. Reel, stop. You can twitch it with your rod. Impart a little action, make it dart and dive a little bit, and that sometimes elicits strikes. So play with them. You'll have a lot of fun.
The last lure is the jig. Now, the jig has been catching bass for decades. It is one of the best for catching large bass. But the thing that trips up a lot of people is trying to figure out what kind of jig to get, what size, what color. So let's dig into that a little bit. There's really four main jig types. There's the roundhead jig, football jig, swim jig, and the flipping jig. Now, you don't need to have all of them to begin with, but most anglers that have been around fishing for quite a while have those in his arsenal. What are those for?
Well, the ball jig is used for a couple of things. One, you can get them with skirts on them in the form of a finesse jig. Those are great for when the bite is a little bit off and the fish are a little bit reluctant to bite. Finesse jigs can save the day. They're a more compact size jig. But also the ball jigs, you can thread a grub onto them. You can put them in a tube. You can use them for a variety of different baits. The cool thing about them, because it's a round head, it doesn't get hung up very much. So it's great for throwing around rocks and gravel, riprap, those type of things. And even if you do get hung up, because the eye's at the top of the head, they're easier to get unstuck, to pop it loose and get it out of those things. So those are best for using open water or rock ears or canyons, those type of things, round ball head, jig heads work for that.
The next one is football jigs. Now, football jigs are designed to be crawled on the bottom of the lake. You reel those in and crawl them on the bottom and they kind of wobble back and forth. So a jig with a skirt with a crawdad trailer on it resembles a crawdad. And color-wise, you just want to stick to the browns or the greens if your water has got a little bit of visibility to clear. And if your water is really dirty, less than a foot of visibility, then you can use, like, a black and blue. And that's it. You don't have to go crazy with colors. Size-wise, half-ounce jig and quarter-ounce jig is really the staple. That's like bread and butter. That'll cover the majority of your fishing. The bigger ones, when the bass are biting the bigger baits, sometimes it's in the fall and the winter months, a bigger bait will work. And in the early spring, and then the compact size of the quarter-ounce works best for the warmer months, particularly if you want a real slow fall. The slower the fall typically is the more bites you'll get. So a quarter-ounce works a lot in that situation. Now if the bass are super active and they're chasing down bait and everything, well, you might not want to throw a jig. You might want to throw a crankbait or a spinnerbait. But you can also use a fast fall. So a heavier jig and let it punch through weed cover, let it fall quickly, and that will trigger that reaction bite. So having those two different weight sizes helps with those things. That's for all these jigs I'm talking about.
Now the next one is the swim jig. A swim jig is designed to look like a bait fish. You actually reel it through the water. And as you do, it has a little bit of a wobble action to it, but most anglers like to reel it back in by just shaking the rod tip as they reel it in. That imparts a lively action to it, makes it look like a bait fish going through the water. You can put a boot tail trailer on it, something that looks like a bait fish. You can swim it around anything, really. Outside weed lines, along sunken road beds, you can do on a riprap, you can do it along docks. It's a variety of different areas. Color-wise, you're looking for a baitfish. That's what you're trying to imitate. So white, white and chartreuse, maybe some silver in it. That's really all you need. You don't need a whole bunch of colors. Swim jigs have become very, very popular ways of catching bass, and the bass are fooled by them all the time. So make sure you have some swim jigs.
And then the last kind of jig, that's your flipping jig. Sometimes referred to as a grass jig, some call it a bass jig. But these are designed to be thrown into the cover. So flooded bushes, flooded trees, weeds, things like that. It's got a good weed guard on it. The line tie is in the front, so it pulls through the weeds really easy. It doesn't get a lot of gunk on it. When it comes back through all this, it doesn't collect all that. And most importantly, it doesn't get hung up very easily. You can throw it in some real thick, nasty stuff and get it back out without it being snagged. So that's why they're very productive. Plus, a lot of times, this is when the bass...the bass will get up in that stuff for a variety of different reasons throughout the season. But a lot of times, that's where the bass will hang out. And you've got to go in and dig them out. And sometimes plopping that jig right on their face when they're sitting in the weeds, or sitting right next to a stump, or right underneath the dock, getting that jig right up on their face is all that it takes for them to just nail it. And that's what a flipping jig does for you. So, you can put a craw trailer on it. You can put a baitfish-style trailer on it. There's a variety of things to do with them. Again, the colors are the same. Do the browns, the greens when it's clear, and same thing using the black and blue jig. Black and blue is kind of a universal color for all lakes. It doesn't have much visibility to them. Black and blue works really well.
Some guys like to take the craw trailer and match the skirt, while others like to have contrasting. And there's merits to both. Sometimes that's all it takes to get a bite. If you've got the matching colors and you're not getting the bites, switch up and perhaps if you're using a brown jig, put a black trailer on it. Sometimes that's all it takes is just a change in color to get that bite. So just play with it, experiment with it. If you're not having a lot of success with it, keep trying because jigs are very, very productive. Those are the three main baits that you're going to find in virtually every tackle box of every bass angler because they work and they're easy to use. So, go out, get some, and use them, and have a lot of fun. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
