All right. Here are the top six baits that catch bass during April anywhere in the country. Now, this time of year the bass are chomping at the bit and they're biting pretty much anything, so it's really hard to narrow it down to just six. But I've been fishing all around the country and I know that these six will catch bass anywhere. It doesn't matter.
So, let's start right off with a Senko, you know, soft plastic stick bait. This is a great time of year to be throwing them, particularly the wacky style. Use a Gamakatsu weedless, wacky style hook and you can throw this around cover. You can throw this on weed edges. You can dance it across the top of submerged weeds, along docks. This is a great bait to skip under docks rigged this way. A lot of times, the bass are sitting up right underneath there, especially on a sunny day. You skip it up underneath there, wow, boom, you got them. Anywhere that's shade, overhangs, you know, a tree that's overhanging the shoreline, bushes and submerged brush piles, anything like that works. That's a great area to throw a wacky rigged Senko. So give that a go.
Now, spinnerbaits is the next bait that works really well this time of year, particularly when you want to cover a lot of water. Spinnerbaits, they're weedless in nature, so you can throw them around thick cover. I like to throw it actually into cover if I can, or right on the edge of it and bring it out through that. It gets a lot of bass out that are buried up in that cover. This works really well, just retrieved in a fast pace. You want it just under the surface, you want to be able to see it. Don't let it sink down and retrieve it slowly. Use a Double Willow or a Double Indiana Blade spinnerbait, white, and put a trailer on it. I always have a trailer on it. It gives a little bit of extra bulk, a little bit of extra action, gives the bass a little more opportunity to hone in and hit the bait.
I like to use these instead of chatterbaits this time of year. Why? Well, a lot of people are throwing chatterbaits. The bass have seen a lot of chatterbaits, and they're getting used to chatterbaits and they've bitten a lot of chatterbaits. So guess what? Throwing spinnerbaits is throwing something a little bit different. Plus, spinnerbaits are more weedless in nature than a traditional chatterbait. So you can throw this all around the kind of cover I mentioned, along docks, pilings, and you can throw it on the outside weed lines, pretty much anywhere, and it's actually more versatile than your traditional chatterbait. So give a spinnerbait a go, 1/2 ounce to 3/4 ounce is what I'd be throwing because you're going to bring it back pretty quick, reeling it really fast. And if it weighs too light, like a 3/8 ounce, it'll lay over on its side a little bit. A lot of guys like to throw a 3/8-ounce spinnerbait this time of year. I go heavy up because I like to bring it back very quickly, and I don't want it to lay over on its side. So try that out.
Next, I want to talk a little bit about crankbaits. Now think about it, this time of year a lot of bass have already spawned, or are spawning, or haven't spawned yet. They're getting ready to spawn. So besides the ones that are on beds, there's a lot of bass that are in the shallows, but they're a little bit deeper. They're in that 3-to-8-foot zone. That's perfect for a shallow to medium diving crankbait. That's how you can reach them.
You just throw out, cast, and reel it back in. Pretty straightforward. You don't have to do anything too fancy. A stop-and-go retrieve works really well. If you're not getting bass just by throwing out and retrieving it, then do a stop-and-go retrieve. Throw it out, reel it in a little bit, pause it, count to one, two, three, start to reel it again. You don't have to wait too long. A lot of times that change in action, change in direction is what triggers a bite. So, go along those outside weed lines, along those docks and a little bit deeper water, long tapering points. Maybe you're by a ledge or a hump or a ridge or a drop-off, something that's a little bit deeper than those flats where those bass are spawning, that is a good area to throw these shallow to medium diving crankbaits. Color-wise, crawdad works really well this time of year. Those greens and red hues and, you know, baitfish color works really well. Red, it is actually a really good time of year to throw it right now in the spring. Red is particularly good. That's it. You don't have to go too crazy with a bunch of colors and you'll catch a lot of bass with them.
Now, the next lure might seem a little odd to you, but a hollow-bodied frog works really well this time of year. I know, a lot of guys use hollow-bodied frogs just in the late summer when the weeds have matted over, you have this thick vegetation, frogs work great during that. You throw it on the top of that vegetation, float it across the top, skitter it across that matted vegetation, and you get a lot of great blow-ups of bass from underneath it. But, it's a lot more versatile lure than most people think.
I start throwing them any time the water temperature gets in the 50s and starts to warm up from there. Yeah, yeah, and I catch a lot of fish that way. The frog season starts a lot earlier than what most people think and you don't need to have matted weeds for them to work effectively. It works great in open water or around if you've got scattered lily pads like you have this time of year, along docks. Maybe you've got some milfoil or Hydrilla around the docks, you can skip it up underneath docks and underneath overhangs. Works really well that way, along weed lines, across the top of beds or bedding fish or fish that are really shallow that are getting ready to bed. There's all kinds of places you can use them.
You just cast it out, plop it down, let it sit for a few seconds, wait for those rings to dissipate from the splash down, and then just pop it back, stop, give it a little pause, reel up on the slack a little bit, and give them more of a pop, pop, pop, and then you wait.
How long you wait is totally up to you. Sometimes the bass want a long pause, sometimes they want a very short pause. You just kind of have to experiment that day to figure out what they want and feed it to them. So, just keep playing around with that cadence and how many times you pop it between pauses, and eventually you figure out what the magic formula is for that day, and then you replicate it everywhere you go, and you'll catch a lot of fish that way. So, try a hollow-bodied frog this year. You'll be surprised at how well it works.
Now lastly is the Ned Rig. Now, the Ned Rig works really well for those bass, again, that have already spawned and they've moved off to deeper water, or those ones that are the next wave that's coming in to spawn. So, a little bit deeper water helps reach those a bit better. And also when you've got, say, a front that's come through or conditions aren't ideal, the bite isn't very good, that's when a Ned Rig shines. Just use a green pumpkin or a dark-colored one on an 1/8-ounce weedless jig head, and you're good to go. Fish that 5-to-10-foot zone with them, maybe 15 at the most. Really don't have to go that deep, 5 to 10 is perfect this time of year. They'll be sitting right off that next deepest water right near a flat, or right near a spawning area. That's where they're going to sit. That's going to be an ideal area to go to catch these fish. You just cast it out, let it flutter down, let it sit on the bottom, twitch it a little bit, let it sit, twitch it a little bit, let it sit. You don't have to overwork it for the bass to bite it. So try a Ned Rig.
And the next bait is a jig. A jig works exceptionally well this time of year, especially when the bass are getting ready to spawn. They start using that cover in those areas as they migrate closer to the spawning areas. Anything they can nestle up into, especially if a front's gone through, but even then they use cover as they move their way to the shallows, they're going to get up in the bushes, they're going to get up in the weeds, they're going to get in brush piles, lay-downs, those type of things and even under docks, as they work their way towards those spawning areas. And a jig is a great way to reach them, primarily because it's weedless, so you don't get hung up in that stuff. And when they're buried in there, sometimes you've got to go in after them, and a jig is perfectly suited for this.
Just use a 1/4-ounce jig, maybe a 3/8 ounce at the most, but I use a 1/4-ounce jig. I put a Rage Craw trailer on it, and you've got yourself a perfect craw imitator. That Rage Craw has a lot of action on it. On the claws, they flutter down, and they move, and they give a lot of swimming action to it. That attracts the bass as well.
Just pitch it into that cover, let it fall all the way on a slack line, and when it hits the bottom, reel up on that slack, feel, is there a bass there? Okay. Lift up a little bit, and let it drop back down, reel up on that slack, feel for a bass again. Do that two or three times, and then reel it back and cast again. Don't work it all the way back to you. Typically, a bass is going to hit it on that first or second drop, and then after that, you can reel it in, pitch to another area. So, you can cover water pretty efficiently with it, and you can horse those fish out of that cover, especially when they're buried up in it this time of year.
So with these baits, you're going to catch a lot of fish during April. Regardless of where you are located, regardless of your latitude, and regardless of the type of lakes that you fish, these six will work wherever you are, and you're going to have yourself a ball. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
