Fishing Lures for Largemouth Bass
Every angler wishes they could have one magical lure that never fails to catch fish, but this wouldn't be realistic. In this guide, we discuss the best largemouth bass lures and when to fish each bait.
Bass can be challenging to fish for, as their tastes and preferences change based on many factors. Largemouth bass and smallmouth bass each have different qualities that make them independent feeders.
As well as the species difference, you have to consider the time of day you're fishing, what the weather's like, and what the fish are used to eating. Bass can be difficult to predict, but in this post, we will be unveiling the world's best largemouth bass lures to help you catch fish under any conditions.
Table of Contents (Jump-to)
Booyah Pond Magic - Best Largemouth Spinnerbait
4.5 Stars | 2,150+ Angler Reviews
The Booyah Pond Magic Spinnerbait is the first on the list because of its success at catching largemouth bass. The lure gives off a ton of reflection to get the attention of even the biggest largies, and its weedless design makes it efficient to use. The blade has great action mimicking an injured baitfish.
We were also surprised at how well this lure holds up. It's a rust-resistant bass lure that will stay intact even after the strongest blows from big largemouth. The lure has 4.6 stars on Amazon with over 500 reviews of anglers vouching for it and has been awarded Amazon's Choice Product.
Fishing Spinnerbaits for Largemouth Bass
Spinnerbaits are also unique because they catch largemouth almost anywhere. They work exceptionally well in shallow and deep water, and you can retrieve them at any speed. If you're fishing from a boat and going from deep water ledge to ledge, you'll want to slow down your retrieve.
Focus on causing as much commotion as you can by bumping your spinner into rocks and logs. If you're fishing from shore, you'll want to prioritize your cast placement and try to get your spinner as close to the bank as possible.
The best spinnerbaits come in many colors, but you should look for something with a lot of "flare" to really catch the bigger bass's attention. Largemouth bass often cluster around areas with lots of weeds and aquatic plants, so you should always try using weedless baits first. It's a real hassle if you have to take weeds off of your hooks after every cast.
Gary Yamamoto Senkos - Best Plastic Worm
4.7 Stars | 3,330+ Angler Reviews
*Update: Bass Pro Shops 25% Sale
There are tons of different styles of plastic worms. When you're choosing a good plastic worm for largemouth, your best bet is to use a Yamamoto Senko Bait Plastic Worm. These are by far the most popular rubber worms for fishing, and it's easy to see why. They have more weight to them than common worms, they're more durable, and their added girth attracts much better than the competition.
Any angler from any state what plastic worm they recommend, and 9 out of 10 times they'll tell you about Senkos. They are the #1 Best Seller in the Fishing Jig Category on Amazon with 4.6 stars and over 1000 reviews.
If you're not already using Senkos, you're in luck because this tip will make you catch far more largemouth. If you want to learn more about Gary Yamamoto Senko Worms, here's a helpful guide!
Artificial Worms For Largemouth Bass
When fishing for largemouth bass with soft plastic lures, the best option is to use rubber or plastic worms. These guys will shred fish year-round and can be combined with almost any fishing style.
You can use these on a drop shot rig, you can use them on ledges, you can use them to mimic injured baitfish, and overall they are an exceptionally versatile bait to use.
One of our favorite strategies is to use just a worm with an offset bait hook without weighting. With this strategy, you want to cast it close to shore, let it fall for 3-5 seconds, pull it one rod-length up, reel in the slack, and repeat.
With this method, the worm has the best natural presentation, and largemouth bass love the slow-falling style. They will almost always hit it when it's falling, so be prepared to set the hook on your pull-up!
Strike King Red Eye Shad - Best Lipless Crankbait
4.6 Stars | 440+ Angler Reviews
*Update: Bass Pro Shops 37% Sale
A strong recommendation for a lipless crankbait that catches Largemouth Bass is the Strike King Red Eye Shad Crankbait. This thing never fails to get the job done and put fish in the boat.
The coloration is flashy enough to attract largemouth, but it keeps a realistic and approachable design. The lure also has a tremendous body-to-hook ratio, which means you'll avoid getting your line tangled in the hooks every cast like other crankbaits.
The crankbait by Strike King also has the best rattling sounds on the market. It's not abrasive and obnoxious like others, but it has just enough sound to make it even more tempting to largemouth bass when you knock it against obstacles.
Lipless Crankbait Techniques
When all else fails, you can rely on a trusty lipless crankbait to get the job done. One of the crankbaits' best qualities is that they can be fished faster than other lures, allowing you to cover more water. Lipless crankbaits offer the best imitation of the baitfish largemouth bass are feeding on, and they can be easier to control when fishing them correctly.
Lipless crankbaits can be used in every situation. Whether you're bouncing from ledge to ledge, fishing in the grass, tagging deep water humps, casting into the flats, or working around stump fields, you'll be able to lure in the fish.
Contact Lure Technique
You should also always remember that crankbaits are "contact" lures, which means they work best when you're bumping them into objects. If you're fishing a stump field, for example, you'll want to place your cast so that on your retrieve, you can knock your crankbait against multiple logs.
Bass will usually follow a crankbait until they see it do something unexpected like this, and then they'll bite. Largemouth bass think your baitfish presentation is wounded and will take their opportunity at an easy meal.
Z-Man Elite - Best Largemouth Bass Chatterbait
4.6 Stars | 830+ Angler Reviews
The Z-man Chatterbait Elite is an exceptional topwater bait for fishing largemouth bass. The Z-man lure brand is known in the angler community to produce exceptional quality baits.
Not only are they durable and well built, but they've been shown to outperform the competition. This lure gives off a ton of vibration, which gets the bigger largemouth bass's attention that only strike larger profile baits.
This is likely a lure that you already have because it's so popular. With that said, this list would feel incomplete without this bait. We recommend purchasing this bait from Amazon because of its great reputation, but it can be found in many different stores.
Fishing Chatterbaits for Largemouth Bass
When fishing with chatterbaits, the most important thing to remember is to create a commotion. Don't be afraid to rip these things along the surface and make your bait create a large wake.
While this effect can easily spook other fish species, bass are drawn to the vibration, and flashing chatterbaits create that.
One common technique is skipping chatterbaits underneath objects. These could be low overhanging branches, docks, or anything else that creates cover. This will often promote a reaction strike from the fish and get you hooked up right away!
Heddon Super Spook - Best Topwater Bass Lure
4.7 Stars | 2,330+ Angler Reviews
*Update: Bass Pro Shops 22% Sale
The Heddon Super Spook is truly a phenomenal lure to catch largemouth bass. While it appears to be extremely simple in its design, it's been fine-tuned to be an insane lure.
Heddon is one of the most well-known lure manufacturers and is one of those companies endorsed by dozens of professional anglers. It creates the perfect "walk the dog" effect and is exceptionally versatile. The build quality is out of this world, and it isn't even all that expensive.
If you don't know any anglers yourself who rave about this lure, look at the reviews it has on Amazon. It currently has 4.7 Stars from over 1600 reviews, and it's been awarded the #1 Topwater Fishing Lure.
If you don't have this bait, you are missing out, and you're about to start catching a whole lot more fish. We've written a guide on the best Heddon Spook colors for largemouth bass that you should check out!
Topwater Largemouth Bass Fishing
When you're fishing a topwater lure like this one for largies, we definitely recommend you learn about the "walk to dog" fishing technique. You want to get your lure to zig-zag along the surface, which creates a very tempting presentation.
This technique is a little bit too advanced to teach in this guide, but there are plenty of other resources available for this online.
Zoom Super Fluke - Best Soft Plastic Swimbait
4.6 Stars | 50+ Angler Reviews
*Update: Bass Pro Shops 39% Sale
The Zoom Super Fluke is an affordable and efficient largemouth bass lure. This bait has a wide variety of applications and fishing situations. Colors range from natural bluegill imitations to vibrant yellow.
Armed with a few of the best Zoom Super Fluke colors, you can confidently fish from the early summer through the late spring. It's comparable to the Senko in its versatility and natural movement in the water.
Mondo Worm - Runner-up Soft Plastic Worm
4.6 Stars | 100+ Angler Reviews
The 10" Googan Baits Mondo Worm is a large presentation-style bait. Even though it's large, it keeps a natural action in the water. This flexibility is mainly due to how thin this worm is. The curled tail design also gives the Mondo Worm a fluttering action as it drifts through the water. We all know this is an effect that bass can't resist.
This worm is one of Googan Bait's top-selling products for a reason. Other lure manufacturers haven't perfected this style worm yet, so these guys have the edge over the competition. We advise using this worm in summertime conditions or when largemouth are aggressively feeding on baitfish.
Strike King Dream Shot - Best Drop Shot Worm
4.6 Stars | 40+ Angler Reviews
Deep Water fishing can often be a challenge for anglers. It's essential to have a bait such as the Strike King Dream Shot that's flexible enough to perform well. Because this bait is made of such a soft material, the angler can "twitch" the worm even when it's far away.
The worm is prevalent and is exceptional in waters deeper than 10 - 15 feet. The wide range of Dream Shot color options includes Watermelon Red, Green Pumpkin, and Bold Bluegill, to name a few.
Rapala Terminator Pro - Best Largemouth Bass Jig
5 Stars | 4+ Angler Reviews
The Rapala Terminator Pro Jig is excellent for flipping, pitching, or bouncing along the shoreline. It's important to look for jigs with a good build quality since they get attacked with a large amount of force by largemouth bass. In general, jigs are meant to imitate crawfish or crayfish swimming along the bottom of a lake or river.
A feature that makes the Terminator Pro unique is its brush guard. Other brands use a solid piece of plastic to make their Jigs weedless, which is less effective. The Brush guard will keep the unwanted weeds, sticks, and grasses off your jig without reducing your hook-up ratio.
Strike King Pro-Model 8XD - Best Deep Diving Crankbait
4.6 Stars | 75+ Angler Reviews
Deep diving crankbaits with rattling action are a must-have if you're serious about catching largemouth bass. The Strike King Pro-Model 8XD Crankbait is a perfect option if you don't already have something similar.
This is the best deep-diving crankbait that you can buy. It dives to an incredible maximum depth of 20ft and casts farther than others as well. The bait rattles by creating sonic vibrations inside the main body. Realism is also crucial in many bass fishing situations.
Strike King has released an entire line of color patterns, so you can choose from unique 3D paintwork.
Smallmouth vs. Largemouth Bass Lures
While you may occasionally hook up to smallmouth bass and largemouth bass when fishing the same lure, you need to understand the differences between them if you're serious about bass fishing.
In this post, we'll only be discussing largemouth bass, but if you're interested in smallies, you can look at this post about smallmouth bass lures.
Largemouth Bass Diet
Largemouth bass will mostly eat baitfish, crustaceans, and frogs, but they'll eat just about anything smaller than them. Largemouth bass have even been known to eat mice, rats, ducks, and other unexpected prey.
How to "Match-the-Hatch"
When you're deciding on an excellent lure to use for largemouth, you want to pick something that you think best matches what the fish are eating. This will be different depending on the regions and climate that you live in.
An excellent way to identify baitfish species in your lake or river is to scan the shoreline. Often, you'll see silver minnows, bluegill, or schools of shad.
If you aren't able to visually identify any baitfish, the next thing you can do is listen. It seems strange, but there can be indicating sounds of some fish. A good example of this is the noise bluegill makes when they feed in the summers.
If you hear a "popping" or "gurgling" sound coming from weed mats along the shoreline, it's from bluegill feeding on micro-organisms in the algae.
Conclusion
We hope you found this professional guide to the world's best largemouth bass useful. If you take our advice and catch a big Largie with something you learned from this, we'd love to hear about it in the comments under this post!
Our team spends countless hours testing and researching bass lures to help you guys catch more fish when you're out on the water. If you're a passionate angler like us, we know you'll like our other content.
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