Most Productive Baits ~ A Seasonal Review

[scaleface]

I'll hit on the RedEye shad just a bit longer . I have a one knocker . A silent chrome  lure that the weight came loose in, I guess . Man ,  it worked good jigging off the end  of points .  When fishing from an aluminum jon boat , I can hear it do its magic below me . I can hear it falling and hear strikes . Sometimes I hear the strike and not feel them . A-Jay , does any of your silent ones rattle ?

[A-Jay]

Yes Sir - this one.  Picked it up the year the silent models came out.

 

I think I made a post about it a while back.   Either way - the faint click, click, click it has, rather than the loud rattle or the Big Knock is often times all they want.  I've change the hooks on this one so many times I've lost count.  It started out as Gold Sexy Shad but I'm thinking the color plays less of a role these days.  There's virtually no paint left on it now and I think it's missing an eye !  This is one I might actually go swimming for.

A-Jay

[scaleface]

^ That lure has been through a lot .

[A-Jay]

Indeed - mostly LM & SMB but Old Mr Tooth Face Pike has done a fair amount of finish removal as well.  Which is why this bait is fished exclusively on a small trace of wire - all day - every day.

A-Jay

[Bluebasser86]

On 11/27/2016 at 4:35 AM, scaleface said:

I'll hit on the RedEye shad just a bit longer . I have a one knocker . A silent chrome  lure that the weight came loose in, I guess . Man ,  it worked good jigging off the end  of points .  When fishing from an aluminum jon boat , I can hear it do its magic below me . I can hear it falling and hear strikes . Sometimes I hear the strike and not feel them . A-Jay , does any of your silent ones rattle ?

This is one of the things I miss about not fishing in an aluminum boat anymore, I could always hear the rattles of my lipless bait and would often hear the "Tick", when a fish struck. Recently stole the old aluminum blue boat from @gardnerjigman and got a very violent reminder of what that strike sounds like. 
 

[The Bassman]

Want to be careful and not hijack thread but has the subject of rattling cranks putting fish down after a few casts been discussed?

[A-Jay]

Nice ~ while fishing Lake Baccarac we had a big time rattle bait bite for 3 or 4 days - Our Guide Manual, was telling me to set the hook well before I actually knew I had one on - said he could hear it.  Apparently besides having hands of stone, I'm fairly deaf as well.

A-Jay

 

On 11/27/2016 at 6:43 AM, The Bassman said:

Want to be careful and not hijack thread but has the subject of rattling cranks putting fish down after a few casts been discussed?

Seems to happen less to me if I put the first few fish in the box instead of releasing them.

Start a new thread if you want.

A-Jay

[Jeff H]

I catch fish on a variety of baits every year, but my most consistently productive are ALWAYS jigs and T-rig worms in all their variations.  I fish a bit of everything, like everybody else, but these 2 baits bring more LM bass over the gunnel than all others combined.  For smallies, I do best with tubes, shallow or deep and drop shot is a close 2nd.

[BrackishBassin]

Most effective for me has been plastics, but I did manage to catch one on every lure in my box this year except top water and jigs. I plan on focusing on both of those until I mange to hook up with something. The top water is probably doable, but I think I'm going to struggle with the jigs. Everything I have to fish locally is soft bottom that's covered with grass. Definitely not great jig territory.

Baits I'd like to try fishing this upcoming season (or this winter if I can find some water that isn't frozen) - chatterbaits, underspins, and some bigger spinnerbaits.

[riverbasser]

I guess I'm guna buy a silent RES and hit it with a hammer when I get home to knock em loose.

[A-Jay]

6th Sense Custom Lures makes a lipless bait called a   S  N  A  T  C  H  70FRS.  The FRS stands for Faint Rattling System. 

I've had decent results with it.   It's a little wider / thicker profile lure than the RES and does not possess the same slack line sinking action or  swim on the sink either.  But they eat it none the less.

http://www.6thsenselures.com/******-70frs

A-Jay

[bchase44]

I only fished from June - present this year but here are mine in order of most confirmed bites / caught fish:

1) Roboworm Desert Craw 4.5" drop-shotted in shallow water

2) Jointed Shad-Rap 1/4 oz I believe

3) Cotton Cordell Super Spot (caught the two biggest bass of the year (around 3lbs each) in one day.. Lost lure next trip

4) 5" GYCB Senko watermelon/black and watermelon/red flake (weightless and wacky)

5) Z-man Ned rig set-up, 1/8 oz. (most variety of fish award:  Bass, crappie, Freshwater Drum, Rock bass)

6) Rebel Big/Wee Craw Crankbait (All smallmouth, 1 LMB, 2 Ozark Red-Eye Bass)

Honorable mention goes to Strike King 4.5" watermelon tube, while I only fished it for an hour all year it did catch me a 3.9lb Channel Catfish yesterday 

Total LMB bass 43, Smallmouth 3

Lures that are loved by many but I could not catch a single fish in 2016:

1) Any Chatterbait

2) Any Frog

3) Any spinnerbait

 

[Paul Roberts]

Spent so much time working on bass behavior videos I actually fished much less than usual. Here's what I did make use of:

Swim Jig (Mango) -Top of the list simply bc... it's a jig, and it fishes through the dense milfoil and coontail I have here, and just about anything else. I can safely throw into wood, up on the bank, even up into overhanging shoreline brush and tree limbs. Even makes a good slop bait.

Grub -paddle-tails mostly.

X-Rap -Didya know they fish through veggies darn well?

Big O -Great old GoTo.

DS and Jig-worm (“Shaky”) -under bluebird skies.

Stick-worms -sight fishing. No shame. Then again… no real pride either.  

[jr231]

6 hours ago, BrackishBassin said:

Most effective for me has been plastics, but I did manage to catch one on every lure in my box this year except top water and jigs. I plan on focusing on both of those until I mange to hook up with something. The top water is probably doable, but I think I'm going to struggle with the jigs. Everything I have to fish locally is soft bottom that's covered with grass. Definitely not great jig territory.

Baits I'd like to try fishing this upcoming season (or this winter if I can find some water that isn't frozen) - chatterbaits, underspins, and some bigger spinnerbaits.

Try a swim jig in that lake. 

[fishwizzard]

This is the first year I have seriously gone after bass and here is what seems to have worked best.

1) Ned Rig, assorted plastics and jigheads, but mostly a half zinker on a zman 1/20oz jig or Owner 1/16 Ultrahead.  Never really found a pattern in respect to color other than some days they wanted "natural" and some days "loud".  The Ned was my go to smallmouth lure and despite building a little collection of tubes I never managed to catch much on them.  Going to give tubes and short stickbaits a good try this season before I give up and go all Ned.

2) Rage Menace grub, t-rigged with either a 3/0 Owner Straight Shank or an Owner 2/0 Twistlock.  Better hookups on the former, easier time fishing cover/weeds on the latter.  Most of the time I fished it weightless but started using a 1/16th steel weight as sort of a nose-cone to protect the plastic and let me run it fast just subsurface.  I have also used it as a trailer, a pitching bait, and on a small shaky head jig.  It caught me some of my biggest bass of the year. 

3) Flukes/soft jerkbaits.  Love these things, they work great for bank fishing and and are great for covering water quickly.  I fish them across pads a lot as well, letting them drop into holes.  I tried to get proficient with senkos this year but I can't resist fishing them too fast and usualy ended up putting a fluke on the line in short order.  

 

[claya]

Spring: 

Shad rap 6 dark red crawdad

DT Thug blue back herring

Summer:

Jackall MC60SR ghost sexy shad - Easily my #1 best bait for the year 

Ima Skimmer ghost blueback herring - My #2 best bait for the year

Fall:

Spinnerbaits - Once again accounted for my biggest bass of the year. White/translucent colors in shad lakes. PBJ color in non-shad lakes.

White Buzz baits

 

Honorable mentions:

Bobby's perfect frog

Underspin with a swimbait trailer

Jackall Squadminnows

 

I like to turn the handle.

[Cgolf]

This was a really off year for me and the river bite was zilch due to low water and heat early. 

Top was the RES. On a week long trip I caught 6 species on this including 2 nice muskies. 

Second was the good old tube, always in the top three for me. 

Third Gambler ugly otter and Rage Menace. Both really caught em but tore up quickly, gambler gets the nod here due to cost, especially right now at TW.

Honerable mentions

Anglers choice wart hawg Ned rig, skinnier than a Zinkerz and heavily salted

Zinkerz rigged weedless on a slider spider head fished around docks, need to work this one more next year. 

Rippin Rap worked but not as good as the RES.

That is about it for me, just looking forward to next season, hoping for a big rebound year.

[BrackishBassin]

11 hours ago, Yeajray231 said:

Try a swim jig in that lake. 

I'll give one a shot. Thanks! Have to be pretty light though, to stay out of the muck.

[Cgolf]

Do you fish T rigged soft plastics on the bottom? I have found bass jigs to have about the same to less gunkupability than a standard Trig. I was really impressed how they came through millfoil.

[Paul Roberts]

Nichol's makes a 1/8oz Mango Jig that covers 0 (slop) to 4 feet. Killer.

[A-Jay]

Nice Paul ~

I really like the looks of that one.

A-Jay

[Choporoz]

On 11/26/2016 at 6:10 PM, Logan S said:

..My MVP's: .... Texas Rigged Rage Bug (probably the single MVP of the whole year), ....

Funny thing....I've probably thrown Rage Bug more than any other single bait the past two years....and I can't remember ever T-rigging it....I probably have, but since I first put one on a weighted hook, that's what I use most.  I also use a lot on chatterbaits, shaky heads and swing-jigs, though.

[Paul Roberts]

Killer.

[WRB]

Repo Man is a knock off of R2Sea Vixen when they stopped making it, now it's back in the R2Sea offering agian. Glad to see that the Repo Man works, less expensive lure than the Vixen.

Excellent review, well done!

Tom

PS, looks like the Vixen is gone agian they now offer Rover.

[Logan S]

48 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Funny thing....I've probably thrown Rage Bug more than any other single bait the past two years....and I can't remember ever T-rigging it....I probably have, but since I first put one on a weighted hook, that's what I use most.  I also use a lot on chatterbaits, shaky heads and swing-jigs, though.

It's amazingly versatile that's for sure.  The texas-rig was so productive for me because I did a lot of pitching/flipping this year, just the way things happened.  Texas-rig gets it in and out of the thick stuff much more effectively.  The weighted-hook method just hasn't fit in with the places/times I've fished, I'm sure it will eventually though .  

From May this year, all on 1/2oz texas-rigged Bug...Not many baits can fish this stuff efficiently, especially that first fish ...The wood is just as thick (if not thicker) below the surface.  (Don't mind all the dinks, only the 1st and 2nd fish in this actually culled for me)