Early spring can be a spectacular time to fish for bass, IF you choose the best approaches. Learn the lures Jason Christie considers essential for this time of year.
Early spring is Jason Christie’s favorite time of the year to fish. The bass tend to be shallow, and the pre-spawn is an outstanding time to catch big bass. Conditions can vary substantially, though, so it’s important to be equipped for the vast range of situations that might be encountered.
We asked Christie to share his top early spring bass baits. As importantly as revealing specific lure choices, Christie shared why he chose each of his top early spring bass baits and discussed the situations that call for each, along with sharing insights on fishing these lures for pre-spawn bass.
YUM Bait Company is releasing 25 custom YUM Dingers colors that the fish have never seen. Learn more!
Sometimes a wild looking soft plastic color gets the nod, especially during the spawn. The answer for this equation is the new pattern Jello Shot. This delicious looking color features a deep red tint with added dark blue and black flake to cause any wayward bass to stop and stare.
Money is money, right? Right! This baby looks just like freshly minted green money, which is exactly what you will earn if you toss this Dinger in a tournament one Saturday morning this Spring.
Jello Shot and Money are two of 25 YUM Dinger custom colors that have been created by YUM Bait Company and released on Lurenet.com. Custom colors fill situational niches and allow you to show fish something they’ve never seen. The custom soft plastic bait program is beginning with the 5-inch YUM Dinger, YUM’s most popular bait. Rest assured, though, that more fabulous colors in other YUM baits will follow.
Learn about different Pop-R models and when to use each to maximize success.
You know the Rebel Pop-R. It’s the most iconic popper in the fishing world, a name commonly used to reference various poppers and the unofficial template for many other popping lures.
You may not realize that the Rebel Lures makes several different Pop-R models, all with much in common but each a little different. We’ll look at all the Pop-Rs and dig into how each is distinctive to help you pick the perfect Pop-R for any given situation.
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.
Late fall, when the mats on grass lakes begin breaking up, is prime time call up big bass with a frog. Read on for expert advice on frog fishing from a veteran bass guide.
“You saw where that was, right?” Jimmy Mason asked, as he reeled his frog quickly away from where a bass had just blasted through the milfoil but missed his bait. “Cast right into the blowhole.”
I followed instructions and happily hit the mark because the bass slurped down my frog almost before it landed. I set the hook hard and then reeled steadily to get the fish turned my way before it dug any deeper in the thick stuff. Soon after I was lip landing 3 1/2 pounds of Lake Guntersville largemouth and another pound or two of vegetation. We kept working the same area and caught three more solid frog bass before returning to search mode.
There are few ways to catch bass that are more fun than casting a BOOYAH Pad Crasher across big mats of vegetation and prompting bass to bust through the grass. Anticipation stays high, especially on a lake like Guntersville, where you know that any bass that explodes on your frog could be a legitimate heavyweight.
Learn winning swim jig strategies for autumn bass fishing from two anglers who have been swimming jigs for many years.
Fall is generally a disjointed time, with bait schools on the move and bass hot on their heels. Action can occur just about anywhere, so anglers need a bait that goes just about anywhere. For such autumn diversity, it’s hard to beat a BOOYAH Mobster swim jig.
“It’s always on my deck because I’m going to throw it around any piece of wood, any dock, any piece of cover that I think the fish may be relating to,” said Oklahoma pro Brent Haggard. “It’s such a huge part of fall fishing, I always have several tied on.”
Chad Warner, Director of Product Development for BOOYAH Bait Company agrees and notes that the swim jig easily earns a spot in his top five fall offerings.
Kevin Brown’s BFL Regional Championship win on one of his home lakes qualified him to fish the BFL All-American on waters that are even closer to home.
“Winning this one and going back to the All-American is such an unreal feeling,” said Kevin Brown of Hot Springs, Ark. about his victory in the Phoenix Bass Fishing League Championship on Lake Ouachita. Brown noted that he’s extra excited for his second opportunity to compete in the BFL All-American because it is being held on one of his home lakes.
The All-American, which is one of the longest running championship events in professional bass fishing, will be held June 2-4 on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.
“All I wanted was the opportunity to qualify for the event on my home lake,” Brown said. He did that easily, as the top six finishers from each regional championship make the All-American. However, he also earned his fourth BFL win and prizes and cash valued at $68,200.
Don’t get in a rut with swimbait presentations. Utilizing various rigs and techniques can help you catch fish in a vast range of situations.
The YUM Pulse has emerged as one of the most popular swimbaits on the planet for bass. That should be no surprise. Its slender, natural baitfish profile screams “easy meal,” while a subtle roll and pulsing tail combine for an action that’s undeniably enticing. Add a ribbed body to push extra water and hook slot to ensure straight rigging and maximize hook-up percentages, and the Pulse has much in its favor.
The YUM Pulse comes in two sizes, 3.5 and 4.5 inches, and a broad range of colors, making it an excellent fit for many situations. It is also diverse in the ways it can be fished. Anglers too often typecast baits, treating any given one as a one-trick (or maybe, two-trick) pony. To do that with the Pulse is a major mistake because this bait is exceptionally effective when presented with several types of rigs. We’ll look at five of the best.
Even with a common bill shape, different crankbaits have distinctive characteristics. We’ll look at six top square bill crankbaits and the best applications for each.
Not all square bill crankbaits are created equal.
That’s important to keep in mind when you are choosing a lure to tie on this time of year. We’re not talking about performance quality or durability (although those are important considerations). We’re talking about variances in shape, sound, size, swimming action and more that cause different lures in the same category to excel in different situations.
When we speak of square bills, we’re talking about shallow running crankbaits with diving bills that are flat in the front and that have corners, instead of being rounded in front and on the sides. As a category, square bills are considered the best crankbaits for working through shallow cover.
Enjoy the benefit of Jason Christie’s expertise and tap into the season’s best bass fishing action.
Late fall can be a very fun time to fish for bass, with the fish often eager to feed as they prepare for leaner times. It’s also a season of major transition, though, and quickly changing weather and water conditions trigger changes in bass behavior.
Having the right assortment of late fall bass baits at hand can be critical to finding the best fishing action any given day. With that in mind, we decided to leave nothing to chance. We tapped into the expertise of Jason Christie and got his top late fall bass bait selections, specific to size and color.
Making a good thing even better, we’re going to give you 15 percent off Jason Christie’s featured late fall bass baits. See below for details.
Wading a creek or river for bass and other species is a fun and highly effective way to catch fish during summer and autumn. Follow these tips to find great fishing adventures.
With only a couple of hours available, a buddy and I went for maximized efficiency. We parked my car near an Ozarks creek just before daylight and then rode in his truck to another access point, a mile or so downstream. We had tackle packed in light backpacks and topwater lures tied on, and as soon as we had enough light to see where we were walking, we moved streamside at the lower end of a long pool and eyed our first casts.
My Teeny Pop-R disturbed the slick surface first, and the first gentle pop prompted a not-so-gentle attack. The fish missed twice and didn’t come back, but we were underway. Two hours later, just in time to get to where we needed to go, we left fish biting and walked to my car, a few hundred feet away. We’d caught several smallmouths, a couple of spots and largemouths and a handful of mixed panfish. An amazing start to any day!
If you have wadable streams withing reasonable reach that offer public access and support a population of smallmouths, spots, largemouths, shoal bass or other black bass species, there are few simpler or more enjoyable ways to find fishing action than by wading-fishing with a light spinning outfit and modest arsenal of small lures. These tips can make your wade-fishing outings extra productive.
Why guess at the best lures to use when you can call on the expertise of one of the world’s most accomplished bass anglers?
Early fall bass fishing presents challenges. The fish stay on the move and can be in many different types of areas. With changing conditions, they also can be a bit moody. That said, if you understand seasonal bass behavior and use lures and approaches that capitalize on that knowledge, fishing can be very good this time of year. With that in mind, we talked with Jason Christie and got his picks for the 10 best lures for early fall bass fishing.
