Largemouth Bass Fishing

If you are a seasoned bass hunter, then you know your spots and where your fish are. If you’re new to largemouth bass fishing, this will cover the basics and a bit more.

Rod and Reel:

Most people like to use a 6.5 to 7 foot rod with medium action and line from 6 to 12 pounds. The test of the line is more about snags and obstructions than the size of the fish. You can land a 30 pound bass on 6 pound test all day long without trouble in open water.

For the reel, the most popular is a spool type. Personally I prefer to use an open face for the retrieval speed and ease of casting.

That is pretty simple so far.

Bait:

You will want a selection of baits, especially if you are not familiar with the area:

1. Crank baits. Bring a few because if they are working you will lose a couple.
2. Spinner Baits. Bring a few with a wide assortment of both light and dark skirts.
3. Plastic worms. Bring a couple dozen; they are inexpensive and versatile.

When and Where:

You will have to learn your specific area, but the only part of “How” in  largemouth bass fishing, is to find them.

When the sun starts to come up fish like to eat and most of the good food is near the shore. This is also why it is not a good idea to do your distance swimming off the coast of Southern California at 6:30 in the morning.

You can get some very good results largemouth bass fishing from the bank, but using a boat gives you a major advantage.

Cast your bait of choice into grass and weeds and bring it through. In most Arizona lakes these areas are loaded with fish even if they don’t bite on the first few passes. Work the area for awhile; if there are no results, change baits if you like and then just keep working along the shoreline and out into the water about 30 feet off shore.

As the day progresses and starts to warm up the fish will move to a shaded area or go to deeper water. They are not trying to hide and sleep; they just don’t particularly like wide temperature changes in a short period of time or the direct sunlight.

This is a good time to switch to a jig, medium or deep diving crank bait or one of your plastic worms. You don’t have to go 100 feet down to the canyon floor, but if you start in the 10 foot range and work your way down to deeper water you will find them.

If you are not getting action with the plastic worms, a trick a lot of people use in Arizona is to use their spinner bait as a type of drop shot or jig. You equip your spinner bait with a dark skirt (not black) and then cast it out 20 – 30 feet at the very most. Let the line feed through your finger so you can tell when the bait hits bottom and then give it about a 2 foot pull and let it drop again and then reel it up and start over. Because of the weight of the lead in the bait side, it will drop with the spinner on top and the skirt fluttering

With this technique, many times you will get a hit as the spinner bait is dropping on the cast. If it is a time to go a bit deep I really like to put quite a bit of time into this technique.

Many of the reservoir lakes in Arizona have concrete or stone structures that were flooded and now well below the water. If your fish finder has terrain capabilities and you can find one of those structures, you will have a good chance to find fish and often really big ones.

The biggest challenge when  largemouth bass fishing is getting your bait in a place where they can put their mouth.

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