Must Haves For Summer Bass Fishing

I did notice that. Oh man. Me and you went back and back and forth didn't we buddy? The thing about bed fishing is they can win every cast but one and when they lose you got them and there's nothing they can do about it. You just have them. But he won more than me. I just won the last one. All right we're gonna go over the five best baits for summer or at least the five that I leave tied on literally the entire summer. Number one is going to be the dang Spro Popping Frog. That's my favorite frog by far and in the summers whenever you can catch some really really big ones on it and you can actually get a lot of bites on it. So it's pretty good in late spring. It's good pre-spawn, during the spawn, late spring, all that type of stuff. But I really really like that Spro Popping Frog all summer long. I throw it on a seven foot six heavy fast Envy 13 fishing Envy rod. 8 to 1 gear ratio inception reel. That's going to be on 50 to 60 pound Sunline either X-Plasma or SX1. If I'm in super heavy cover I really like that X-Plasma. It's got a coating on top of it. It's got the X-Plasma coating on top of it and that makes it extremely abrasion resistant whenever you're... There's one on bed. Extremely abrasion resistant whenever you're throwing it in some really heavy cover like wood, around, you know, under docks, all that type of stuff. That X-Plasma coating just really helps out a ton. If I'm fishing more open water and I just put brand new braid on, a lot of times I'll use the SX1 because it, whenever it's brand new, is such a softer braid that it casts really really well whenever it's brand new. So that's my favorite thing to throw all summer long and if y'all have seen my videos before y'all probably know that's my favorite bait to throw. But another really really good one is a swim jig. Leave it on the front deck literally all summer. Might change between white, black and blue, you know, a bluegill color, a green pumpkin color, all that type of stuff. I go through kind of the gauntlet on colors just depending on what kind of baits in the area. If I see a lot of shad, if it's dirty, I still like a black and blue around bluegill, I like a black and blue. All that type of stuff affects it. Obviously if it's clear, I'm going to go with like a green pumpkin or some type of bluegill color, try to match those. Same kind of deal. 50 pound SX1 typically in super heavy cover, big grass match, all that type of stuff. I will go to the X-Plasma. That's going to be on a 7'3", medium heavy, extra fast or a 7'3", heavy fast rod. Throw it on the Envy also. Same kind of setup, 8 to 1 gear ratio, Inception reel. That's my two kind of power fishing deals that I really like to leave on the front deck all the time. So if I'm trying to catch a big one on the Apex, my favorite trailer is the Lunch Bug Craw from 13. I've been throwing another one that's coming out very soon from 13 that is good for all around, but if I'm kind of trying to catch a big one, throwing a big swim jig, a big profile, use that Lunch Bug Craw. It's just a really big crawl style and it doesn't have quite as aggressive of a flap as some of the other crawl baits. So whenever it's a little bit warmer, you can reel it a little bit faster. It doesn't create quite as much drag on the water, but still has that big profile and still does generate quite a bit of action. So my favorite swim jig setup for catching big bites is that one. Another one that I never go fishing without no matter what time of year it is, but it also plays really well in the summer, is a flipping rod. It's going to be fluorocarbon for flipping in wood, flipping in sparse grass. I flip it in some thick grass sometimes, but I like braid for that, but it's going to be a seven foot six, heavy, Envy rod also, and it's going to be 22 pound Sunline Shooter for the most part. Fast gear ratio reel, eight to one, half ounce tungsten, untamed tungsten, five-volt Gamakatsu straight shank flipping hook, and I flip the Invader, which I flip a lot now. Got on it really good last summer. I was catching a lot of fish on the Invader. It's a little more subtle whenever you're flipping in that cover, it really slides through really well, and it's a more subtle presentation. I do still throw some beaver baits and stuff like that from time to time, still mix it in some, but the Invader is still a really, really good one whenever it's a little bit tougher to get a bite in the summer, late summer, whenever the bait and the bluegill have just spawned, they're a little bit smaller. I just feel like it gets more bites. Another really good one in the summer is a shaky head. You know, you got to fish offshore a pretty good bit in the summer. You fish a little bit deeper, here's one on the bed right there, fish a little bit deeper in the summer, fish some brush, fish some offshore rocks, some deep points, all that type of stuff in the summer really plays big time, and I like that shaky head for it. We've got one coming out very, very soon from Untamed. Shaky head, we put a lot of work into. We try to do things a lot differently on this shaky head, try to make it a little more unique, but throw that with like a, just a six inch straight tail worm is going to be the standard. Obviously, you change it based on kind of where you're at, or if the water's stained, or any of that type of stuff, you can make some changes to it, but for the most part, do throw that on, you know, with like the 13 fishing BFF, and I like that BFF because it has kind of like a spade tail on it, it has a ton of action in the water. Been throwing it weightless, been throwing it wacky rig, been throwing shaky head, been throwing a lot of different ways, and catch them really good on that BFF, so something natural, green pumpkin, collard green, or you can go to a, like a boss nugget, chili lime, red chili, whatever it's called. It's like a red bug color. All that type of stuff really plays in the summertime. I don't know why, but they really like that red bug or red hot chili from 13. They like those kind of colors in the summer a ton. Another good one that you have to have, because sometimes you got to fish offshore, it's a little bit tougher, spotted bass, just eat this thing, smallmouth, eat this thing, no matter where you're at in the summer. I have a drop shot, unfortunately, tied on or really close in the rod box, if not laying on the front deck. Kind of the same thing, you can fish it anywhere. You can pitch it to dock pilings, you can take it out and, you know, throw it over brush, you can throw it over rock piles, long points, all that type of stuff. I throw the drop shot and the shaky head on the exact same rod. Seven foot three, medium, fast, Envy rod, high speed, 2500 reel, spinning reel. The high speed, when I can get, I like the 2500 because it's a little bit lighter. I feel like it's a little bit more manageable. I feel like when I cast the 2500 size reel, I can just like manage the line a little bit better on the spool. Seems like the 3000 size reel, it just, I don't know, it just seems a little bit harder to be super precise with it, but you can't throw a 2500 size reel quite as far, but that's kind of my setup for an old shaking head and the drop shot. So those are, those are probably five that I'm gonna say, no matter where you're at in the country, you can catch a bass on it. Hopefully, they'll be a little bigger than this one, but you never know. Sometimes they ain't. I do like to mix it up a lot in the summer. When I fish termites in the summer, it's very often that I fish shallow and deep in the same exact day. So that's kind of why I'm picking baits that I can, you know, throw shallow and throw deep, get big bites shallow, get big bites deep, all that type of stuff. I mix that in a ton and that's kind of how I fish in the summertime. Now, obviously, if you're on, you know, the Tennessee River in the summer, you might want to throw a big crankbait or, you know, like the Spur Little John DD, like the big one. That kind of stuff really catches them good in the summer, but for me, those are just some general baits that are going to get you bites, no matter where you're at in the summertime. So, and you might be on a lake that has a lot more rock and you don't want to frog and you put on a buzzbait or something similar, but that's kind of going to be a guideline. That's not going to be a copy and paste on every single lake type of a deal, but it's five you can get bit on anywhere, so gotta get me another worm. Okay, give me your worm. I'm gonna grab a worm real quick. All right, so buzzbaits. One of the tried and true baits. I mean, everybody has caught big ones on a buzzbait. Everybody's caught a bunch of fish on a buzzbait. It's just a great way to get some bites. I mean, it really does generate a ton of bites. My setup for a buzzbait is going to be a seven foot three, medium heavy, fast. I don't really like an extra fast for a buzzbait, and I've played with it a few different times of me actually throwing like a seven foot three heavy cranking rod on a buzzbait because I do like to throw braid on the buzzbait. 50 pound braid and 99.9% of the time I'm gonna throw it on a seven three, medium heavy, fast. I like the braids that can make a lot longer cast. If I get something on the blade or something, I want to snap it off. I just can a lot easier with the braid. I feel like if I want to twitch the rod and give it a little flutter or squirt some water out or whatever, I feel like I can do that a whole lot easier with braid than I can with mono or fluorocarbon. Some people use fluorocarbon. I know they do. That's fine. That's all good, but I just like the braid. I don't lose a lot on it, but I don't set the hook very hard on the buzzbait. Whenever I see one come up and bite it, I try, try, this does not mean I do it every time, to just lean into them against the way they bit it. So if I knew the fish came from the left and ate it going to the left, I'm just going to try to lean back across the way that he bit it and see if I can't just bury that hook with that braid because the buzzbait has an exposed hook and that's kind of my setup of why I throw it on braid. Now I almost always throw a soft plastic on a buzzbait. I have gotten back into recently throwing a skirt on one. I didn't throw a skirt on one for years and years and years and years, just because you can skip it. And I feel like they eat it a little bit better. You know, whenever you've got, I feel like they eat it a little bit better whenever you've got that plastic on there. So a lot of times I do throw the plastic, but I have gotten back and thrown a skirt a little bit recently. I feel like they eat it pretty good with the skirt also. I just feel like I lose a little bit more on it. So that's my basic buzzbait setup. It's going to be a 7.3 to one gear ratio reel, and I'll pick it up as soon as that water temp gets over 50 degrees in the spring. That's whenever I pretty much start throwing it. The bite doesn't really happen though till post-spawn. Shad starts spawning, bluegill get up on the bank, then the buzzbait bite really gets good, and that's when I really am going to want to throw it. Water clarity can be all different types of water clarity. I just will, if I'm fishing extremely clear water, I mean extremely clear water, I'll kind of downsize my blade. You know, if I'm fishing really muddy water, I'll kind of want a big blade. I can reel it really slow and make a lot of disturbance, a lot of vibration, a lot of commotion on the surface. So it's kind of my buzzbait setup. Pretty simple. So whopper plopper style bait is going to be plopper style bait, whatever you want to call it. That's going to be a 7.6 medium heavy, unless I'm throwing the absolute really, really big one. For the most part, it's going to be a 7.3 medium heavy or 7.6 medium heavy. I like the Omen for that one because that Omen loads a little bit deeper. It's not quite as fast of a rod as the Envy series is. So I really like it for the big treble hook style baits that I throw on heavy line. I really like that rod to load a little bit better. So that's the one that I throw, you know, the whopper plopper on, some of the bigger swim baits I throw, the medium-sized swim baits, throw a lot of that stuff on the Omen. But the whopper plopper is going to be on 50-pound braid. If I'm throwing the small one, it may go down to 30-pound braid. For the most part, it's going to be 50-pound braid and a 7.3 to 1 gear ratio reel, a rod that loads a little bit better. And I throw it very similarly to a buzz bait. When that water temp gets over 50, I know they're going to start eating that bait. They're going to start eating that top water really good and that's whenever I'll pick it up and start throwing it. Another thing with that one is you just, you don't want to set the hook. You want to lean into them, kind of just reel into them, hook them with those big treble hooks, and then grind them to the boat and swing them, typically. That's what I do a lot of times. I don't like, I don't like playing fish with treble hooks with a bait as heavy as the whopper plopper at the boat. If they're coming and I can swing them, I'm going to swing them. If I've got somebody with a net, I'll net them, but we don't have the luxury of using the net on the Elite Series, so if they're coming with them treble hooks, I just typically swing them and that's going to be one of those things I keep simple too. You know, just that's the rod I throw it on. I don't, you know, change colors, get crazy with colors, none of the stuff like that. Just throw that thing down the bank. The reason I pick a whopper plopper over a buzz bait, if you're on lakes with a lot of rock, pole timber, stuff where you don't have to skip a lot, I really like that plopper style bait. If I'm skipping it, throwing it through heavier cover, it's going to get around grass a good bit. That's when I'll go to the buzz bait just based on kind of the cover that I'm fishing. So that's the whopper plopper. All right, that's my take on I guess about seven different baits that are really good whenever it gets hot. It ain't quite summertime yet. We're still seeing some spawners, but it's mostly post-spawn down here in the southeast. Let me know. Leave me a comment down below. Let me know what baits you cannot go fishing with in the summertime. If you have a different ones than me, let me know why you can't go fish with that bait, where you throw that bait, that type of stuff. I want to see if y'all do something differently than I do. I read all the comments, always do, but also leave me a request if y'all got any type of video you think would be cool to see in the summertime, to see this time of year, whatever. We're kind of just trying to film, get back on the pattern of filming a ton. We've been kind of having a little off time, chilling a little bit, fishing a lot. Leave us some requests down below and then let me know how you differ from my summertime five to seven baits. So appreciate y'all guys watching. We'll see y'all in the next one.