Bass Fishing, Keep It Simple

Spinnerbaits are one of the most widely used bass fishing baits out there

Thinking about what I said above you can go through your bass fishing tackle and come up with a few solutions for yourself. Think about the colors, sizes and styles you most often use and the conditions that you will be using them in.

Some suggestions for your bass fishing lures would be a 3/8 ounce spinnerbait with a single gold Colorado blade and a 1/8 ounce duel blade spinnerbait
with a gold wedge Colorado blade as the main blade. The skirt color should be chartreuse/white.

The reason we chose the 3/8 ounce size because it an in between size and can be used in many different situations. We chose a single blade style because of the vibrations it gives off and the many different ways it can be retrieved, such as slow roll, surface ripple, jigging, pumping, slow fall etc.

When you need to go a smaller bass fishing bait that has the vibration factor of the larger blade the 1/8 ounce lure with the baby wedge Colorado blade is a good choice. For your color selection you can choose any color you want or what you have done best with but white and chartreuse cover almost any water and feeding conditions and this color combination in one skirt will handle it all.

A trailer on your spinnerbaits is something you should also think about. The baits we are using as an example here are chartreuse/white so a split tail or curl tail grub in white or chartreuse would be a great choice. The color is chosen by which color needs more enhancement in the lure. For example when fishing clear water or when baitfish are the prey then white is the best choice but when in dirtier water or when bluegill are the prey then chartreuse is better. Use the split tail grubs when you want your lure to look longer and curl tails when you want more action, vibration and skirt flaring.

spinnerbaits are a great bass fishing lure and should not be overlooked when slimming down your bass fishing tackle.

Your simplified bass fishing tackle will probably have a few more crankbaits than spinnerbaits.

A good example of bass fishing crankbaits would be a 1/4 ounce chrome with black back and chartreuse with black back Rat-L-Traps. A 1/4 ounce Baby N and Quarterback, a 1/8 ounce Deep Tiny N, and a 3/8 ounce Deep Little N. All of these in fire tiger, shad and crawfish. You can use other brands of lures as long as they have a countdown rattler, and divers of different depths.

Using these crankbaits is pretty straight forward. When Bass fishing with crankbaits you use the Rat-L-Trap to locate the fish quickly or when they are feeding heavily on baitfish. You use diving crankbaits to get down to different depths, bumping cover, and stop and go retrieves. Diving crankbaits will also give more of a wobble than a tight wiggle.

Use your fire tiger crankbaits in stained water. Use the crawfish when you know that the primary food is crawfish and use the shad in clear water and when the bass are feeding in baitfish.

I have an absolutely great selection of crankbaits and fishing information at Tacklemaster Sports so go check it out.

When bass Fishing, plastic worms are a mainstay! Right up there with spinnerbaits. With plastic worms you can easily get carried away with all the types, styles, colors, and sizes. While all of them have their place, if you have to choose one color, black would have to be it.

Think about it for a minute. How many of the other colors of plastic baits that you have seen have some black in them. Think about the creatures crawling around where you will be fishing your plastic worm. Most of these critters will have a lot of black in them or will be all black.

This does not mean that the other colors won't work because they will but if you had to choose any other color as your only choice then it would have to be dark grape.

Now for styles and sizes. When bass fishing you will want to have some 7 inch ribbon tails, some 4 inch ribbed, and some 4 inch finesse . Your main plastic worm would probably be the 7 inch ribbon tail which you can cut down if you need to. In muddy or stained water where bass need more vibration and water disturbance to locate their pray the ribbon tail is an excellent choice of plastic worm.The other worms should be used when fishing slows down. I recommend Berkley's Power Worm. They have proven their effectiveness over and over again.

To go along with your plastic worms you are going to need a supply of weights, hooks, and jig heads. Your weights should be bullet sinkers in sizes from 1/16 ounce to 1/4 ounce. The hooks should be worm hooks sizes 1 to 4/0. Your jig heads should be 1/16 to 1/4 ounce barbed collar with size 1/0 and 2/0 hooks.
For more great fishing info. or some plastic worms, weights, hooks or jig heads check out Tacklemaster Sports

Jigs are another important bass fishing lure. They are slow fished. Your jigs should be 1/4 ounce skirted. Colors should be black/blue, black/chartreuse/green, and copperhead. Brown/orange or brown/black can be substituted for copperhead.

You should make your color choices like this, black/blue for clear or cooler water. Black/chartreuse is used in stained and muddy waters and copperhead is used in areas where there are a lot of crawfish, low light conditions in clear water and along windswept and rocky shorelines. If you are not sure what to use go with black/blue.

Trailers for your jigs are important. Black/red flake, blue/black flake and pumpkin are all good color choices. A black/blue jig head with a black/blue flake trailer, a black/chartreuse jig head with a black/red flake trailer or a copperhead jig head with pumpkin trailer are all good choices.

Good styles of trailers to use are Berkley's Chigger Craw, Larew's Salt Craw, and Mann's Auger Frog. The Auger Frog will flair the skirt and make a lot of water movement. The Chigger Craw provides more bulk while also giving a leg kicking action. The Salt Craw adds length, claws and extra color of the claws.

Check out Tacklemaster Sports for great fishing information and good deals on jig heads and trailers.

Tubes are a very popular lure for bass fishing These lures are very easy to use and are great fish catchers. 3 and 4 inch sizes with thick walls are good for Texas rigging. Tubes are used with jig heads in swimming techniques. Another great technique is to crawl tubes through heavy cover when flipping and pitching. Xgap and Xpoint style hooks are best when Texas rigging tubes. The offset and round bend of the hook will let you set it without the bulky plastic interfering.

The color is black but this time with red flake. This is the primary color but 2 others to have on hand are watermelon and pumpkinseed. Watermelon works better in late spring and summer months.

Check out Tacklemaster Sports today
for some great fishing info. and good tackle deals.

there are many other types of lures you can use such as grubs, top water, jerk worms and the list goes on.

What this article has been about is finding a simple and productive selection of lures so that a beginner can learn bass fishing and an experienced angler can enjoy bass fishing and be productive without being saddled down with a lot of extra gear.

Simplifying your bass tackle will give a beginner a place to start, a novice a point to grow from and an advanced bass fisherman something to fall back on when his tackle needs to be condensed.

This is only a guideline, as far as lure types and colors, I have told you what I have found to be true. When you put your condensed tackle system together you need to use what has produced best for you.

To get great fishing info. and tackle deals check out my site Tacklemaster Sports. We just added a forum so we need you fisherman to get over there and help get it going.

I know no one wants to be the first in a forum but you won't be the first, I am, me Tacklemaster and I am getting lonely with no one to talk to!!! So help me out! get on over to Tacklemaster Sports and keep me company in the forum. I would really like to see it turn into something everyone can enjoy, pick up great info. and make new friends!

We also have a monthly big fish contest. Biggest freshwater fish wins prizes. Register and go out and catch a big one. Learn more about that right here Tacklemaster Sports Fishing Contest

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