Bass Fishing Tips

It usually spawns from frustration, or boredom. The graph shows plenty of baitfish and even bigger marks of gamefish, but they’re not interested in what you’ve been cooking. Innocently enough – often as a last resort -- you drop a spoon into the fish and feel a tap. The fish pulls hard, and with that, you’re hooked on spoon fishing.

Talk about fishing in north Alabama will reach a crescendo in late February as the Bassmaster Classic hits Birmingham and Guntersville Lake, but anglers should remember that there are a lot more than bass swimming in ‘Bama waters. The crappie fishing in Guntersville and other nearby lakes is every bit as productive as the bass fishing.

If you could be on the water in Alabama only one week out of the year and wanted the best largemouth fishing for numbers and quality, where would you go and what would you throw? It’s a tough question, given the ample opportunities for great largemouth bass fishing on the Tennessee River in north Alabama. The state has four impoundments -- Guntersville, Wheeler, Wilson and Pickwick -- along the 652-mile long river that snakes through Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. You can’t overlook famed Lake Eufaula, either, for outstanding largemouth bass fishing.

Load the boat with tons of tackle trays if you like, but the YUM Wooly Bug simplifies most of my on-the-water decision-making. Day in and day out, I flip and pitch and punch with only two baits: a jig and the Yum Wooly Bug. I use the Wooly Bug in other ways, too, as I will explain, but the simple truth is that after the spawn, I probably rely upon the Wooly Bug more than I do any other lure.

Many anglers believe the fishing season doesn’t start until bass move up in the early prespawn, but the heart of winter is a great time to catch bass. Here’s how to catch more bass when it’s too cold to be fishing.

Bass anglers often fly wide open right past one of the best locations on almost any lake, and it’s so easy to see that even non-fishermen know where to find it. It’s riprap, those rocks and chunks of concrete stacked along shore to prevent erosion, and there are a bunch of reasons bass love it.

There are hollow-body frogs, hard-plastic frogs, frogs that pop and spit, soft-plastic frogs…so many choices that anglers may have a difficult time selecting the right one for the job. Here’s a brief rundown of when and where to use each type of frog lure to catch big bass.

B.A.S.S. Elite and FLW Tour pro angler Jason Christie learned the magic of jerkbaiting bass long ago and has been perfecting the art since. Here he outlines the keys to selection and presentation to put the jerk to work for you.

Many anglers can’t figure out the human spawning process, much less that of a largemouth bass, but understanding when and where the fish spawn is essential to bass fishing success in the spring.

During the summer, fall and winter, river bass can be pretty easy to locate and catch. But come springtime and it gets a little tougher. Here are four spots to check on your local river this spring.

Bass anglers can lose focus after the fish leave the beds. Anglers knew what to do as the fish went through the prespawn and actual spawn, but 10 days later these same anglers can be confused, zipping from one spot to the next like water bugs. It’s this postspawn period, prior to the fish setting up on established summertime areas, that throws a monkey wrench into bass fishing.

During late winter, white bass begin migrating up-lake to the river sections of impoundments and into feeder creeks. They’re traveling toward shallow, moving water to spawn. It’s Mother Nature’s way of replenishing a species, but this predictable movement also makes for some of the most exciting and anticipated fishing of the year.