5 Cheap Summer Bass Fishing Lures That Work All Summer!

Glenn: Hey, folks, Glenn May here with the BassResource.com, and today I want to talk to you about fishing in the summertime on a budget. Now, the thing about summer, the fish are really active. They feed the most during this time of year and there are days when you can...I swear you could throw a paperclip at them and they'll bite it. So, there's a lot of lures that can work throughout the whole summer. The challenge is which ones do you use? All right? Which ones should you buy? Because there's days you can catch a bunch of fish on a certain lure and then they won't bite that throughout the rest of the year.

So, what I've narrowed it down is the five top producing baits that are inexpensive. You can buy all five of these, spend less than 40 bucks total and catch fish all summer long on them. Okay? So, that's what I'm focusing on here. So, you don't have to spend a whole bunch of money on baits that aren't going to perform very well for you.

So, we're going to start off with the Rebel Pop-R. This little Pop-R here. Look at this. The little minnow bait, it's a topwater plug, and this has been around for a long time. I think about the '80s or so was when this came out and that's when I first started fishing in and it has sharp hooks. This imitates a little minnow and during the summertime, that's what the fish are feeding on. The bass are eating all kinds of forage. There's bait fish, they're going after bluegill, they're going after shad, after perch. This mimics a little dying bait fish on the surface. It sits on the top like this kind of on an angle. This feather tail kind of looks like its tail.

And you just... I put a little one, size one snap on it and I'll throw it on spinning gear because it's a real light bait. It's hard to cast on baitcasting gear, so I'll use 10-pound, 8-pound test monofilament because fluorocarbon sinks. So, monofilament works really well for topwater baits, keeps it up on the surface, but I'll throw it out there and let it sit and just let the ripples dissipate. Don't fall asleep when you're doing that. Don't sit there and have a cigarette and hang out until the ripples dissipate. Because a lot of times, the fish will clock this when it's just sitting still. Right after you cast, right when it lands on the water and you're just waiting for that to dissipate, the fish will come up and slam it. And I like to fish near docks, particularly for that reason. You just throw it by a dock and wait and the fish will come out from underneath that dock and hit it.

But if a fish doesn't after the rings dissipate, then give it a little plop. Little bloop, just jerk the reel, the rod, give it a little pop. And this depends on the situation. So, like out here, there's not barely a ripple on the water, so I just give a little pop, pop, very subtle, not strong pops at all. And that's what you want to do when the wind is down. If it's a little more windy, a little more choppy, give it a little more aggressive pops, you know, hit it a little bit harder to push a lot of water. You get that fish's attention. But that works really well during the summertime, particularly in the early morning hours.

One other trick I like to use is when the fish are really aggressive and biting. This is something a lot of people don't use. It's a great technique though. Throw it out there and just pop it all the way back to the boat. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop as you reel it in, just chug it all the way back in a steady cadence. And a lot of times, the fish will track that down especially great way to fish over the tops of weed beds like milfoil and hydrilla in the summertime. It will call those fish up out of those weeds to clock your bait. Even in the middle of the day when it's nice and sunny out, they'll be there and this will call them out, so this is a great bait to use for that and it's inexpensive.

Next bait I want to talk about is the Chatterbait. The original Chatterbait. Now, Chatterbait, when it came out, it revolutionized really the way we fish. It came out with a whole new way of fishing, look at this blade up here, whole new way to catch fish and caught a lot of fish and it was very, very popular. Well, since then, a lot of iterations have come out. There's been a lot of manufacturers that have come out with different versions and the price keeps going up on each iteration. The original Chatterbait is still available and you can get it, very inexpensive. And this catches fish and it's great in the summertime because you can fish it shallow really fast, burning over the tops of the weed beds, bring it back along docks. It's a great way to catch fish that way, but also you can fish it deep, throw it out there and let it fall, you know, over the deeper structure where fish are situated in the summertime, like points and humps, rock beds, rock humps, rock piles, bush piles, things like that, you know, over creek beds. Get it down there to where they're at and then just slowly reel it in real nice and slow. And this bait will just, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to under the water and you can catch a lot of fish. So, this is really versatile, which really adds to its value because you can fish at both shallow and deep and catch fish where they are throughout the summertime. So, Chatterbait is on my list of inexpensive baits for summer.

Keri: Here we go. Look at that. Where are you, dude?

Man: Come here, fish. That's a good fish.

Keri: He's acting like he's gonna get in. Come here. There we go.

Man: Not that big, but he sure felt like it.

Keri: Yeah, they wanna chase something. Chatterbait. That's a good fish. That's the best one we've got all day, or almost as big.

Man: Chatterbait.

Keri: Chatterbait.

Glenn: The next one is...you got a fish them man, it's the Booyah Pad Crasher. This is great for a couple of reasons. One is it's the only bait that's going to get to fish that are underneath the matted weeds. Hydrilla and milfoil during the middle and end of summer, it grows and mats over. You've got these giant massive expanse of matted weeds. You throw this over the top of it, it's not going to get hung up. See where the hooks are? The hooks are located...they're actually touching the body, but it's a flexible body. So, when the fish bites, the hooks become exposed and hook him, but you're going across all those weeds. It's not going to get snagged and all that. So, it's great for calling fish up through underneath those submerged or those matted weeds. Just bring it over the top and twitch it across. It looks like a little mouse or something going across the surface and those bass will come up through those weeds and eat it.

But it's also a good value because it's very, very durable. This bait...I've caught at least 25 or 30 fish on this bait and it looks brand new. And that's...the material that they use is not going to rip and tear. And that's a problem with a lot of frog baits out there. They start to tear and then they get leaks in them and the water gets in them and it starts to sink and gets down where you don't want it to. Now, it gets stuck in all those weeds and it doesn't work very well. This bait holds up. It's very, very durable. So, it's a great value for the money. So, this, you've got to have it for the summertime. Great bait to use.

Let's move on to the next one. I want to talk about swimbaits. Now, a lot of times when people talk about swimbaits, they're thinking about something like this. Big, huge swimbait, big expensive swimbait. No, we're not talking about that today. We're talking about paddle tail minnows. And there's two kinds I fish. One is the rage swimmer. This guy right here. And you can see how I got him rigged. I got him rigged on a keel-weighted hook. See that? Now, this is very effective to fish in, first of all, the whole water column. There we go. Straighten it out a little bit. I fish it over the weeds and I fish it through lily pads and skipping under docks and because it's Texas rig like that, it's not going to get hung up. So, it fishes very effectively through that and you can fish it fast. Again, fish are feeding on minnows, on baitfish during the summertime, so this perfectly mimics that. But because the keel-weight is there, I can fish at deeper depths too. I can go out to deeper water. I can fish it off those points, those rock piles. I can fish it on submerged roadbeds. I can fish at all kinds of places and catch fish on it because of that weight. I can just add or remove as much weight as I want depending on how deep I want to fish it. Great bait to use because of its versatility.

But another way I like to fish...another bait I like use is the YUM Pulse Minnow. And this little guy, what I like to do is I'll rig it on a Shakey Head. Now, this is a Megastrike E2 Shakey Head, but that Pulse Minnow sitting right on here, it sits like that in the water, its tail up. And what it looks like, it looks like a little bait fish feeding on the bottom like this. And bass can't stand that, man. It looks like a little innocent bait fish, not paying attention to its surroundings. It's easy prey. It's easy meal and just bouncing along the bottom like that and the fish are just suck it right off the bottom. It's a great way to fish, the Pulse Minnow. And the Shakey Head, this E2 Shakey Head keeps it like this. You need a flat bottom shakey head because otherwise, it'll just lay over on side and it's just going to sit on the bottom like this and not look good. So, you've got to have a flat bottom to it so it sticks up like that. That's what you want to imitate that little bait fish feeding on the bottom. But that's a great way to fish the Pulse Minnow during the summertime. You can fish at all depths, shallow or deep. You just got to be patient to get it out in the deeper water. But it works really, really well in the summertime.

There we go. Good fish. Here we go. Stay down. Come here. Here we go, baby. Come on onboard. Look at that. How do you like that, guys? Wow. Again, just right in the roof of the mouth. That's where you want him. That's a good fish right there. All right. Nice 4-pounder right here. All right, ready?

And then finally, the last bait. It's inexpensive to use, the old standby. This is a YUM Ribbontail Worm, the old 7-inch worm. This is fantastic bait to use in the summertime. I put this on a Texas rig, usually starting off with about a 3/8-ounce tungsten weight and I flip and pitch it. So, here I'm using braid, usually, 50 pound Seaguar braided line. I like the Gray Smackdown and I put it on a stout rod, medium-heavy 7-foot rod. And I like to cast this out into weeds. Flip and pitch it into thick weeds because this is such a...it's a straight tail, is not going to get hung up, doesn't have a lot of appendages. So, it'll slither down into the the hydrilla, into the mailfol, into the weeds, into the coontail without getting stuck on it all. You can throw it in submerged bushes, flooded bushes, you can fish it on, you know, into stump fields without getting hung up. It's a very, very versatile bait. You can fish and all kinds of cover, fish holding cover where you'll find the bass in the summertime.

Again, very inexpensive lure and it comes with a variety of colors for your lake. If you don't know exactly what color to fish, start with green pumpkin, that's a good color, all around color, works anywhere in the country. Or fish any shade of purple. And I go with basically the lighter the color, with the light...the clearer the water it is, the lighter the color will be. So, here I'll be using like a plum, lighter shade of purple, like a plumb or electric blue or like this color here, is electric grape. And as it gets darker, less visibility in the water, I'll do something more like a june bug, which is a real dark purple. So, just as a gauge, the lighter and more natural colors is what you want to use in the clear water and then the darker colors in the darker water. But that's a great bait to use to catch a lot of fish.

Strong fish. That's a real strong fish. Here we go. Give me your face. He'd been eating. Man. Hook him right at the roof of the mouth too. Do you think he wanted that? He'd been eating. Took that worm. Here we go. Just saw it swimming off. Never felt the bite. All right, dude. Let’s not fall over. All right.

So, those are the five baits. You can use those, spend less than 40 bucks, catch fish all summer long. You're going to have yourself a ball. I hope those tips help. For more tips and tricks like this, visit BassResource.com.