Top 5 spring bass baits

Written by Andrew Schadegg

Spring has sprung all over the country! It’s time to dust off your tackle bag, rig up your rods with the right baits and get out on the water for the best fishing of the year.

When you’re planning what baits to rig up, it’s always difficult to decide what to choose. We’re going to make it easy, by giving you 5 spring bass baits that should always be on the end of your line.

1. Squarebill Crankbait – Almost no other reaction bait is better in the spring (and most of the year) than a squarebill. You can cover tons of water, which is really important this time of year, plus you have have the ability to work it around rocks, stumps and other cover in big, shallow, spawning areas.

2. Lipless Crankbait – Same family as the squarebill, but without the lip for diving and that gives you a couple of advantages. First, it allows you to work those same shallow flats, but you can keep the bait up in the strike zone by fishing it really quickly. Burning a lipless in the shallows is a really great technique especially through weed areas where you can rip it out and get reaction strikes. Second, it can be fished on drop-offs and ledges easily, so you can try it in different depths.

3. Jerkbait – This slender cousin of the crankbait is widely considered one of the most productive spring baits you can fish. You can fish it slow or fast. You can pause it, jerk it erratically or fish it deep or shallow. Bass in the spring can be in a lot of different moods and hang out in various part of the water column. A jerkbait can alert you really quickly to where the bass are located.

4. Glide Bait – Have you ever had a giant bass follow your lure all the way to the boat? It’s a common occurrence with a glide bait in the spring, because bass are enticed and threatened by these big jointed baits. They act as a wonderful fish locater, but if conditions are right they can also put a ton of big fish in the boat in a hurry.

5. Spinnerbait – A spinnerbait is one of the best baits to fish in reeds and along weedlines, which happen to be areas that are very popular for bass to spawn in the spring. It is an easy lure to ease through cover and pinpoint your casts, so that you can target specific areas. Make sure to change up your retrieves and angles to see what works best.

Don’t play a guessing game on the water. Rig up these 5 baits and maximize your time and effectiveness to catch the most bass this spring.