Have you ever stood at the edge of a lake or the front of your boat while bass bust the surface crushing bait fish, frogs or who knows what? The bite’s on and the fish are everywhere!
You rapid fire cast after cast, change out your bass lures time and again praying the next one will slay them only to have the water go calm after what seemed like a minute. The fish got their fill and all goes calm and quiet. You missed your chance. Figuring out what fish are eating is challenging even for seasoned pros.
You load your tackle box with lures that have worked before and you think fish will eat again but rarely know what you’ll find when you get on the water. Conditions change quickly, bites turn off and on and the fish move from place to place. It’s a puzzle that every good fisherman tries to solve.
There are literally thousands of hard lures to choose from. Some are designed to catch fish and other are designed to snag fisherman and their wallets.
To help you navigate this lure landscape, I pulled together a list of my Must Have Bass Lures for Big Bass. It’s a collection of lures I’ve used and had great success with for not only bass but other species as well. With a swimbait, two topwater lures, a lipless crankait and a jerkbait it covers all the bases.
5 Must Have Bass Lures For Big Bass
Strike King Red Eye Shad Lipless Crank
If I could pick just one lure for everyday fishing this would be it. The Strike King Red Eye Shad made our list because of its unique design with a big head and bulging belly.
The big head results in fewer hangups when you bang it into structure and the bulging belly creates a realistic fluttering motion when the bait is paused and falling which is when many fish strike.
With plenty of free floating rattles you can fish this bait at any speed, with any technique and create plenty of commotion to bring the fish in.
Who better to tell you more about the bait than Kevin Van Dam himself…
Rapala X-Rap Suspending Jerkbait
The most popular and versatile ‘slash bait’ around is the Rapala X-Rap. It comes in so many sizes and color patterns you can use it for just about any fresh or saltwater species.
Slow reel it for a smooth wobbling action that shows off all the shimmer and flash built into the sides or use an erratic jerking motion with lots of pauses for more of a wounded bait fish presentation.
The X-Rap has internal rattles that makes just enough noise to be a great search pattern. If you fish a new lake and need to cover a lot of water this thing casts like a bullet and you can find and dial in on fish fast.
The X-Rap comes in 5 sizes from 1 1/2″ to 4 3/4″ inches long, over 30 color patterns and running depths from 2 to 8 feet. Gold is my all around favorite as it can represent so many different bait fish.
LiveTarget Hollow Body Frog
Twitching a weedless frog pattern over a bed of lily pads or weeds is a heart pounding good time. You never know what lurks beneath that will explode on the surface taking your frog with it.
The LiveTarget Hollow Body Frog, with it’s soft, hollow body, collapses easily increasing your hook up rate. Ultra-sharp, two pronged Trokar hooks help with that as well. The rubber legs stay behind the lure at all times which resembles a frog at rest with it’s legs extended.
The LiveTarget Hollow Body Frog comes in 3 sizes and 8 realistic colors.
I prefer the smaller sizes which seem to be easier for fish to inhale which also increases your hook up rate.
Savage Gear Jointed Swimbait
If you want to catch big fish, don’t just use a big bait, use the best big bait you can find and afford. We chose The Savage Gear Glide Swimmer because it’s well made, fun to fish with, and won’t break the bank.
The single joint body creates such a realistic swimming ‘S’ motion that it can even fool the angler who’s reeling it in. Pause it and the slow sink rate allows the bait to slowly drift down which is irresistible to bass.
In our part of the country we have lots of small lakes that are stocked heavily with rainbow trout early in the season which is our favorite time to fish this bait. Down south or out west it can be fished all year for monster bass.
It comes in 3 sizes and 10 colors. Some of the wilder colors are also deadly for pike and even musky in the larger sizes.
LiveTarget Hollow Body Sunfish
Taking the bass fishing market by storm in 2015 this innovative bait is catching big bass nationwide. LiveTarget took the hollow body, double hook concept, so popular with top water frog baits, and created a sunfish.
Toss it into cover, twitch it, pop it, walk it or swing it… it looks and acts just like a struggling panfish on the surface. The body has a slight arch to it which will actually make the bait jump with a solid pop just like a real fish does when it’s fighting to stay alive. Bass can’t leave it alone!
It comes in 12 hyper realistic color patterns and two sizes: a 3 inch, 7/16 ounce and a 3 ½ inch, 5/8 ounce.
As always, thank you for reading and for your support!