How do you guys progress through your lures during the day?

[Fishing03xx]

So i am going bass fishing tomorrow in northern California and I am curious to peoples progression.  Since the water will be about 50 degrees should i start with a crank bait then move to jerk bait then on to soft plastics or jig? What progression do you guys use and why?

[Nicholas]

I like to use jigs and soft plastics in morning or afternoon but during the middle of the day i try out new lures and fish crankbaits, swimbaits, topwater frogs, whatever i really feel like

[carnegie519]

I start with top water and crankbaits (and lipless). If I don't get a bite i move to soft plastics 

[WRB]

The answer is in the Cosmic Clock.

Water temperature is the temperature the bass are located in. Your lake is either mid or late winter transitioning towards pre spawn. The bass will be neutral to negative, suspended in deep water. A few bass could be active for a short time period, these catchable should be tight to structure and may react to structure spoons, ice jigs, drop shot soft plastics worked uphill. 

If the lake is in pre spawn, I fought that at 50 degrees, then that would change things.

You can guess where the bass are located and what the feed on and fish blind of educate yourself.

Tom

[Fishes in trees]

Don't limit yourself.   Start with your best guess.   If that don't work try your second best guess.  Consider what seasonal patterns should be available and start there

[CJ]

It's more "how and where" than "what". 3 questions to ask yourself:

How deep and where in the water column?

What speed and how much vibration?

What color or flash?

Just my thoughts without the "why"

[Catt]

I start with a Texas Rigged plastic & then a Jig!

Because they are the #1 & #2 most productive lures available!

My #3 & #4 setup will be a spinnerbait & Rat-L-Trap.

We are in early pre-spawn so these are the 4 setups that will be on my deck.

[blckshirt98]

it's still winter and bone chilling cold here in NorCal...local guide has been fishing the Delta and has caught a couple of DD bass using jigs with a pork trailer.  Just need to find the right color the bass want that day.

[papajoe222]

My thinking is similar to CJ's. except I don't take color into account until I've contacted (caught or lost a fish or two) fish.  I'll start out looking for active fish shallow and work my way deeper until I contact fish.  Fish that depth with the same presentation/speed unless I'm fishing deep and slow and the fish are active, in which case, I'll switch to a faster presentation. Somewhere between the shallows and deep structure I anticipate contacting fish. Once I do, I stick with that depth and adjust my offering/presentation if or when I feel the bite has slowed.

BTW, Welcome to the forums. After you get back from fishing, stop by the introductions forum and tell us a little about yourself.

[Raul]

I don't progress nuthin', it depends on what I'm going to fish. If I'm gonna fish the boulder covered dam I will cast a lipless crank or a weightless soft plastic, if I'm gonna fish a flat then I would add a spinnerbait and so on.

[scaleface]

Theres no set way to progress for me . I'll often have my rods rigged and ready to fish before I arrive and change them before ever firing a cast . There are just to many variables .

[Ratherbfishing]

Unless I have a specific location and/or technique in mind and/or unless the weather dictates otherwise, I usually begin by fishing fast and then slowing down.

[ww2farmer]

What I would do on my home lakes during the early prespawn, might or might not work for you. All bodies of water are different. But since you asked, and I have nothing but free time on my hands, I'll play along.

Largemouth fishing:

Let's see, low 50 degree water temps on the main lake would put us some where in late April-early May around here. First thing I would do is go to shallow wind protected spawning pockets/bays. Those areas "should" be warmer than the main lake............if they are not because of cold fronts/rain and or wind pushing cold water into them............get out and come back later. If they are warmer, start fishing. I'll make a lap around the area with a reaction bait, if it's clear water with grass as the main type of cover that would be a 1/4oz swim jig, if it's dirty water, a chatterbait, and if it's hard cover like wood/rock, a squarebill. If they are biting a moving presentation, I fish until they stop, then I target cover with soft plastics and jigs.............if I don't get much action on the reaction baits the first time around, I slow down and fish jigs/plastics. If that hauls water. I leave the area...........I know my lakes well enough to not bother checking more of the same type of water, because if they are not in, or co-operating in area #1, rarely, if ever are they in similar areas either. I don't give up on these spots and will come back later in the day. In the meantime I go back out on the main lake and start poking around out there.

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, Ratherbfishing said:

Unless I have a specific location and/or technique in mind and/or unless the weather dictates otherwise, I usually begin by fishing fast and then slowing down.

This is me and the only thing I would add is starting out with more active baits and working my way down to something more subtle.

What is active of course varies by the time of year, for 50 degree shallow water I would start with a bandit Flattmax or shad rap for cranks for example, which in summer would be the last on my list. That is on a water that I coming to that I haven't fished in a week. 

If I am on a vacation lake where I spend 15 hours a day on the water, I use the bite from the day before and weather to guide my lure selection the next day and many times then I start slow in the morning. One trick I learned is to reel a soft plastic back quickly once I get it out of what I think is the strike zone and if I get a hit or a chaser I start tossing a spinnerbait or crank because something has activated the fish. 

Ultimately my goal is to find active fish, if I have to grind I do, but my goal is to get the easy ones first 

[Choporoz]

15 hours ago, Fishing03xx said:

How do you guys progress through your lures during the day?

Different every time out.  However, the one thing that invariably does not change is the sense at the end of the day that I didn't try something I should have.  I have seriously considered making a list of 30 or so techniques and the couple million possible color combinations and consult it halfway through the day to see if there's something I didn't think of yet, that I ought to be throwing.  The only thing I do that's sort of related to the clock is that I like to throw topwater lures within an hour either side of sunrise and sunset.  Not always and not always successful

[FrogFreak]

Hmm, this question is a hard one to answer. Here is a general strategy that can change based on too many things to list.

1. In the spring I start at the top of the water column, then go from a fast to a slow presentation (top water lures)
2. Then I go mid water starting fast and going slower or erratic (swim jig, bladed jig, spinner, crank)
3. And then I hit the bottom with a jig, t-rig etc. starting faster and slowing down.

But, if I am fishing beds, I just love using a weightless senko wacky rigged but I'll try any soft plastic to get bit.

[the reel ess]

In warm weather (3/4 of the year here):

Morning: Topwater to midlevel bait (spinnerbait, Trap or jerkbait) to bottom bumping bait like a T-rig.

Afternoon: I'd start at the midlevel and go to bottom of it's not working.

Evening: Reverse of morning, ending up with a topwater if they'll take it. Often, if there's no sign of fish chasing bait, I'll usually skip the middle depth in the evening.

In cold weather:

Bottom bumping, Rat L Trap and spinnerbait in the middle of the day.

[Ads7633]

I usually start 15 minutes before sunrise. 

1.) Buzzbaits and/or Topwater Frogs (because they are the most fun, and you usually can't get away with using them later in the day)

2.) Lipless Cranks or Spinnerbaits (After the topwater bite dies down, or occasionally never picks up, I go to search baits, mainly testing to see if the bass are in an aggressive feeding mode. If they are I usually stay with these baits.)

3.) Slow moving soft plastics- Flukes, Senkos, Drop-Shot (If the bass are not chasing the fast moving baits I can usually get them on one of these)

4.) Ned-Rig (If all else fails)

[Derekbass02]

I usually start by using what I think will work best and move on to other baits if that doesn't work. If I can't catch anything with everything I use for a certain amount of time I move to a different area.

[Airman4754]

It really depends on time of year and the species. Where I am you can be in good LMB, smallie, and spot lakes with the same drive time. 

Winter I'm using a Shakey Head, lipless, or drop shot regardless of species. If I pick up a school of fish on the electronics and they aren't biting on those three I'll use a jerk bait. 

Pre-spawn depends on the area. If it's a rocky/gravel bottom on a point of a gradual slope I'm fishing a football jig 100% of the time. If I'm in a creek mouth I'm throwing a spinnerbait. If it's a creek channel drop shot or Shakey Head. If it's a ledge a Carolina rig. For cover I'm fishing a weightless Senko. 

Spawn is a spinnerbait no matter what to cover all the water I want to fish. Then I go back and use a Carolina rig. Then if I can I'll sight fish with a drop shot, small swimbait, or weightless Senko. I'll fish cover with a swim jig.

Post spawn is punching grass, frogging pads and mats, pitching docks, and just trying to find spots where they go to rest and recover. I'll just go looking for them in deeper water during mid day. 

Summer sucks. Spinnerbait in the morning, heavy cover frogging and punching during the hours of light to deep water Carolina rigging with a ton of weight and a huge bait. 

Fall is pretty much the same as prespawn. I own pretty much every kind of bait on the planet. If the normal routing isn't catching fish I'll get creative. 

[alzun664]

Top to bottom, fast to slow is my usual routine.

Unless there's obvious factors like cold/muddy water where certain techniques would be eliminated then I wont waste time trying to get bit on them. You can save a lot of time just by realizing the conditions you're fishing in and selecting your lure accordingly. 

There's always exceptions, for example I have caught fish on bright blue summer days on topwater but they are few and far between. I'd much rather fish what works best in the situation I'm presented with.