Effective Summer Bass Fishing Lures


summer bass lures

In this article, I’m going to list some of the most effective summer bass fishing lures. I’m listing these lures in no particular order seeing as how “the best” bass lures are the ones that work best for each individual angler. Everyone has their favorite bass fishing lures; the point is that you might not have some of these effective summer bass fishing lures in your tackle box/bag. If you don’t have any of these bass lures available you probably want to add them.


When water temperatures rise above the mid eighties bass fishing can become much more difficult. Bass (especially largemouth bass) prefer water temperatures from the mid seventies to the mid eighties, and when the temperatures rise above the mid eighties bass fishing can become tough.

A great way to combat high water temperatures is to fish in the early mornings. This is when the water will be the coolest and cloudy days and rainstorms can help with the water temperatures as well. During the summertime it’s also a great idea to go fishing when there is the least amount of activity on the water. Once all the toys come out, bass fishing can become all but impossible on many lakes and reservoirs.

So what are the effective bass fishing lures that you need to know about and have access to in the summer?
Top Water Baits – These baits can perform best during the mornings and evenings during the hot days of summer. There are many different varieties of top water bass lures that are effective and some of the best are frog imitations and soft stick baits. Frog imitations such as the rebel Teeny Wee Frog can be extremely effective during the summertime.

Shad Imitations – During the summer months many lakes and reservoirs are full of Threadfin Shad. These bait fish are a staple food source for bass all year, but especially in the summertime. When it comes to bass lures one of the most effective is the KickTail Minnow. Of all bass fishing lures available today, this may be one of the most effective. Shad imitations are a must for any tickle box/bag.

Slow Falling Plastics – Plastic worms and grubs are excellent bass lures in the summertime. After your early morning fishing and the day (and water temperatures) start to heat up bass will move to deeper cover. Throwing soft plastics at these bass can be a very effective technique. At this time of the year many times strikes come as the lure is falling, so the less weight you can use the better. Slow falling plastics can be a great option in the summer.
If any of these bass baits aren’t in your fishing repertoire I would add them. These bass lures are all effective when fishing during the dog days of summer and will help you experience more bass fishing success. Just remember there is nothing that will help you bass catching ability like spending time on the water fishing, so for God’s sake get out there!

Trevor Kugler is co-founder of JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 25 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his five year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country.

Effective Summer Bass Lures

Livingston Lures Adds Popper with Four Sound Options

ICAST 2014 has just ended and news of upcoming product launches abounds all around fishing-related social media…

One of the more interesting finds I came across while monitoring new postings to YouTube was a video with bass pro Jacob Powroznik introducing the new Walk & Pop 77 from Livingston Lures.


Livingston Lures Walk - Pop 77

Not only is Livingston adding a popper to their line of “noisy” hard-baits, but this version includes an adaptation of their unique electronic baitfish sounds providing four different options as described in this short video…

Pretty interesting twist if you ask me!

Different View: Gambler Lures’ New Burner Worm

Plastic worms have been around for over sixty years but anglers are always searching for different styles to address various situations…

One of those “different styles” is a relatively thick-bodied worm with a large, tight hooked tail generically referred to as a “buzzing worm”…

Recently, Gambler Lures introduced their own version called the Burner Worm…

Gambler Burner Worm

Though this bait is often fished on a Texas rig or Carolina rig, one of the more popular retrieves is to swim or buzz the worm high in the water column around submerged vegetation as shown below…


This can definitely be a great bait for swimming through dense grass and triggering bass to strike!

Want to check out the color patterns available?


Just click on the image of the Burner Worm provided above to visit the Gambler site and see for yourself!

Save With a DIY Stake Out Pole Project

Effective anchoring can be a key element to many successful bassin’ trips but many anglers don’t like the hassle of dealing with anchors, lines, setting the proper line distance, etc.


DIY stake-out poles

Over the last several years another alternative to the old anchor and line method became fairly well known and even more popular… The use of a solid pole somehow attached or tethered to the boat and driven into bottom sediments when fishing in shallow water…

For some of us the images of remotely controlled and powered pole anchoring systems may pop into mind, the cost and bulk of even the scaled-down versions of these systems is a big-time limitation for many of us…

Fortunately more palatable manual stake out poles are available for small boat anglers since they are readily available and prices tend to be less than $100.

Of course if you have a few tools available as well as some building skills then the cost for a hand-driven stake out pole drops to less than $20 each!

You know what that means? Most of us could even afford to build two poles to really lock the boat in position when fishing certain types of shallow cover or structures… How cool is that 😀

Still being in the research mode as I accessorize my mini-bass boat for the upcoming season, I came across several different approaches for DIY stake out pole projects, all made using slightly different materials…

Rather than me picking one, I decided to do something a little different this time and present all four with a short descriptive title so you can watch any one or all of them as you see fit 🙂

Enjoy and good luck with your stake out pole project!

#1 – Stake Out Pole Built Using 3/4″ Solid Fiberglass Rod

#2 – Stake Out Pole Built Using PVC with Wooden Dowel Inserts



#3 – Stake Out Pole Built By Converting Telescopic Golf Ball Retriever



#4 – Stake Out Pole Built Using 3/4″ Vinyl-Coated Steel Garden Stake


After watching all four of these videos it gave me several ideas for using different elements from a few and creating my own DIY stake out pole project but more on that later!

What do you think?

Any of these approaches work for you, did you come up with an alternative plan or have your own design already?

Let us know by leaving a comment below

Lipless Crankbaits for Fall Bass

Fall bass fishing usually means finding how bass are relating to baitfish.

lipless crankbaits and fall bass

Since bait is often schooled in the fall, a lipless crank can be a great tool to connect with bass keying on shad, herring or alewives as Terry Bolton describes in this video…




Combining Buzz Blades and Frogs

What do you get when you combine an in-line buzz blade with a hollow-bodied frog?

Snag Proof Lure’s Bobby’s Perfect Buzz…

But is it a good bait for fishing the edges of emergent vegetation and other surface cover?

bobby's perfect buzz frog

Well give a listen to what Snag Proof Pro Bobby Barrack has to say as he not only describes the bait, equipment and types of cover but also provides an “on the water” demo…



Best Baits for Fall Bass

Spinnerbaits, crankbaits and jigs reign supreme in my book when it comes to bassin’ the cool water period from mid to late fall…

Check out this video to see what I mean!


What Was Your Classic Dream?

Looking at the title, it instantly brought a smile to my face for two reasons:

The question might cause some folks to scramble through there memory banks to remember that one “classic dream” from past slumbers; or
Trigger memories from competitive oriented bass fisher-people about fishing the “Classic” … the Bassmaster Classic that is!
Okay, I’ll confess, I was one of those in the second group during times I remained active in federated bass clubs.  During those years, I tried to make work my way via the BASS Federation pathway like Jeff Freeman did to gain a berth in this year’s Classic.

The flame started more than a few years ago (more like a few decades) and remained fairly active through the early 90’s until other priorities took hold.

After watching the events of the past two weeks culminating in the three days of the 2010 Bassmaster Classic this past weekend, it seems a small piece of steel struck some flint … we’ll just have to see where it leads

Bass Lure Selection Simplified

Every now and then I stumbled across a pretty cool article related to bass fishing tackle and gear and like to bookmark it for future reference.

Though I could just bookmark it in the browser, I thought this article was worth making available via the Doc’s Fishing Tips site so others could reference it as well…

The article provides an overview of lure selection based on the position in the water column (top, mid, bottom)…

Following are the graphic images from the article…

Just click on any of them to re-direct back to the original publication…




Source: Fix.com

Grubbing For Bass

One of the most consistent producing artificial baits for bass is the curly tail grub.

Mister Twister Curly Tail Grub


It’s definitely one of my fall-back baits, especially on those tough fishing days…

But as Dave Mercer points out in this video, many folks “over-work” them…

Although Dave mentions the Strike King Rage Tail Grub in this video, any grub is fine…

As long as it’s a 5″ Yamamotto Single or Double Tail Grub in Cinnamon-Green Flake…


Just sayin’

Are These the Best Bass Baits?

These baits can be:
  • Fished in cold and warm water with success;
  • Enhanced with a variety of plastic and pork trailers;
  • Used around rocks, trees, weeds, docks & pilings; &
  • Cast, pitched, flipped, skipped, swam and buzzed…
  • Does this make skirted bass jigs the best bass baits on the market?
skirted bass jig options

Evidently the guys from Angling Edge think so…



Check out the full line of skirted bass jigs offered by Santone Lures by clicking on the link text below and get some of these big bass baits for your tackle box today!

Great Co-Angler Tips Via Tim Horton

Many bass anglers release most of the fish we catch each season in an attempt to conserve this precious resource…

RecycleBass
So we land the fish sometimes using our body or the boat deck to help with the process, extract the hooks (sometimes not so gently) and throw the fish back in right?

Though this may help save the bass for future generations, are these the right steps to optimize our catch and release effort?

Here is a great infographic from the folks at Fix.com discussing a myriad of actions to consider when trying to practice catch and release…

Storm Suspending WildEye Swim Shad

Imagine a soft body-type swimbait with a paddle tail that swims and suspends…

Is it possible?

Storm seems to have come close just that by combining a hard plastic chamber over the soft swimbait form of the WildEye Shad!

Not truly suspending but a very slow sinker…

Pretty cool if you ask me


Killer Hacks for Hollow-Body Frogs

Here’s a question many new frog anglers ask…
modifying topwater frogs

Do you use a frog the way it comes from the package or modify it to increase its “catch-ability”?

Most talented froggin’ freaks modify their frogs to either change the action or increase hook-up effectiveness as Gark Klein describes in this video…



What do you do when purchasing a new frog?

Curious minds want to know

Tips When Fishing A New Lake



Though most of us do a little background research and map work-work before heading to a new lake or pond…

What do we do once we are on the water?

This video from WFN provides several “on the water” tips about how to approach your day on a new body of water…

Chatterbait Elite Tips and Tricks

Vibrating swim jigs are commonly described as big bass baits especially when faced with cool, dirty water conditions…

Z-Man Fishing first introduced their Chatterbait several years ago but recently added an upgraded version to the line, the Chatterbait Elite series…


Chatterbait Elite Bass

This new version includes a larger, heavy duty extra sharp hook as well as a soft plastics keeper just behind the skirt on the  hook shank. Both are considered welcome additions by almost all long-time Chatterbait users helping improve an already awesome bait!

In the following video, Z-Man Touring Pro, Stephen Browning gives his view on the new Chatterbait Elite and also adds in a few tips and tricks to make it even better


Great Co-Angler Tips Via Tim Horton

Are you thinking about jumping on board of someone else’s boat to fish a tournament?

Whether it’s a pro-level event or a local tournament organization, there are certain things to keep in mind when fishing from the back seat to get the most from the experience…

In this video, BASS Elite Series Pro, Tim Horton provides some of the ethical and tactical tips to fishing as a co-angler…



Smallmouths Love Swimbaits

Spread the love
Many smallie anglers know the effectiveness of dragging tube jigs on the bottom for big smallmouth bass…

swimbaits for smallmouth bass

Although this can still be an effective approach, there is a new twist to this smallmouth technique …

Simply replace the tube with a minnow mimicking plastic swimbait as the folks from InFisherman TV demo in the following video…