Mike Pehanich

Learn to locate summer bass on offshore structure and how to use deep-diving crankbaits to tap into hot fishing action throughout summer.

The heat of summer delivers a delightful thing to anglers. Bass schooled up on offshore structure. These fish will succumb to various lures, but nothing fires up a school quite like a crankbait! Master offshore bass fishing by learning to locate bass on deep structure and using deep diving crankbaits to tap into outstanding fishing action.

All About Location

The best deep diving crankbait fishing locations couple ideal structure with favorable cover. And, yes, there’s a difference.

Bass use cover wherever they can find it – shallow, deep or in between. Brushpiles, aquatic vegetation, trees, boulders, docks and even the occasional sunken automobile provide predator species like largemouth and smallmouth bass with concealment for ambushing baitfish and other forage, along with other advantages.

Learn how top swim jig anglers select trailers and how to swim a jig for bass and find great success.

Swimming a jig for bass is nothing new. Just ask Chris Jones.

“I started swimming a jig with my dad in the late 1980s and early ‘90s on Lake Fork,” said Jones, a pro angler who has racked up 28 Top 10 finishes in MLF competition. “Back then, the technique wasn’t lure specific. We just swam the jigs we had. We flipped to a bush or laydown, reeled it back…A fish would hit! We didn’t know we were ‘swimming a jig’ until later on.”

Times have changed, and so has the swim jig, today fashioned to function and epitomized in the BOOYAH Mobster Swim Jig.

Learn how and where to fish lipless crankbaits to catch more bass this spring.

Cold water and lipless crankbaits. So wedded are these concepts that many anglers have missed out on the four-season versatility of these simple looking lures.

Of course, there’s no denying the deadly cold-water effectiveness of lipless crankbaits like the BOOYAH Hard Knocker and One Knocker and Cotton Cordell Super Spot. Travel bass waters anywhere when fishermen have donned their winter wear, and you’ll likely find these lures working overtime. Although lipless crankbaits will work their magic in the steamiest days of July, they seem to save their best performances for the chilly water period of from late fall to early spring.

Sometimes called rattle baits for the sounds they emit, lipless crankbaits make it easy for predators to know they are coming, and the fish can’t seem to resist them when they arrive. Do fish find that rattle an irritating alarm? A wake-up call? A hunger inducer? A prelude to a satisfying meal? Who knows? Whatever the case, bass love them.

It’s no longer the talk of the tackle world, but the umbrella rig remains the hottest rig going for bass during the cold-water months.

Baits and rigs come and go.

A flashy new lure floods the market during the bloom of popularity. A few years later, it suffers the fate of fashion, tucked away in a forgotten bait tray.

Such seems the fate of the umbrella rig to many bass anglers who invested heavily in these odd-looking contraptions during the multi-rig heyday but seldom give them a second thought today. 

Not so for Tennessee River guide and bass pro Jimmy Mason, who has never confused fashion with effectiveness.