Top 5 Summer Bass Baits

That thing's so clean I can see myself in it. It's brand new. Brand new and low out. Low out? Many fish as much as me. Just built me a absolute brand new from scratch 7'6 heavy flipping rod. Just, I have wore out my other one. It's still in good shape. Still catch a lot of fish with it. But, something about having a brand new one. I like to re-up every once in a while and get me a new one. Pretty exciting. First time I've ever strung this thing up. Brand new and look how pretty. Beautiful wraps on that thing. Did it all myself. Alright, I need my flipping box. Press that button on that reel. What you got? I got the brand new Gamakatsu G-Power hook. Or, I've got the regular style heavy cover worm hook straight shank. Put the new one on. This is too small. We'll try it. We shall try it. Brand new. First time tying this sucker on. Got them at the classic. Been asking about them for a long time. But, we had this weird virus going around that put everything back a little ways. If I get to tie one on. I would love to tie one on. But, then you'll know about me. I love to tie one on. Favorite setup. Now, let's focus. Favorite setup. Right there. It's beautiful. Looks pretty good in there. Top five summer baits. Old Monster. Football jig. Big shaky head. 10XD. How many is that? Four? And, you gotta have a drop shot. There's my five. Can't Google top five best summer baits. That's new school. Get off new school. This is top five summer baits according to Google. Swim jig. I concur. Crank bait. I concur. Plastic craw. I concur. Top water frog. And, spinner bait. I'm going to be honest with you. The spinner bait for me is a lot more of a pre-spawn fall type of deal. Water temp in the 75 or less range. For me personally. Unless you're really, really burning it or something. So, I'm going to take that spinner bait out and put a buzz bait in. Then, we'll get my stuff. Rolling. All right. It is June the 28th now. We are officially past post-spawn. At least down here in the south we are. I know up north there's still some smallmouth spawning. Still some largemouth spawning. But, in the south, the post-spawn is officially behind us. And, I'm glad. Because, those fish, as soon as they get done spawning, they scatter out from 2 feet to 30 feet. And, they get extremely difficult to catch. But, it's summertime now. I think the summer solstice is what? June the 26th, Hunter? You smarty? I think it's the 21st, ain't it? 21st. Something like that. Summer solstice. Anyway, we passed it. So, now the days are getting shorter. But, the fish are the most aggressive this time of year. At least in my opinion. The 20th. It's just really difficult to figure out where they're located. So, I'm going to tell you kind of how I approach summertime bass fishing. You have to downsize your baits and line and everything when the immediate post-spawn. Because, they get really funky when they come off bed. They're just kind of not in that eating mood. And, this time of year, they cruise around a ton. They roam around a ton. Most of the fish don't sit still. Even when you see these guys catching big schools of fish offshore on ledges or whatever. The fish don't just sit there day after day after day after day. They pull up on certain places at certain times for certain reasons. And, other than that, they pretty much cruise around. If it's offshore flats, offshore bars, or shallow around brim beds and docks in two or three feet of water. They do a lot of cruising. So, I'm going to show you the baits that I try to throw. I kind of put down the jigs and stuff this time of year. Pre-spawn. Even in the post-spawn, I flip around that ace jig a lot. But, this time of year, I go to a lot more creature style baits. Soft plastic style baits that are a lot more thin. Longer and thinner profiles seem to get more bites in the summer months. Like, you throw something like this Missile Baits Quiver Worm. This thing gets the most bites of anything pretty much in the summertime. Just any of that long, slender profile just seems to really make them react this time of year. It's all about putting them in front of it. It's not hard to get bites. If you're fishing shallow and you're a round fish, they'll bite topwater. They'll bite flipping this worm around. They'll bite flipping around a D-Bomb. Whatever you want to do. It's just really hard to locate them. So, I'm going to take y'all through the rods, reels, baits, lines, lures, hooks. Everything that I use for targeting these fish. If I'm on a fish shallow, it's usually going to be a two-way deal this time of year. If y'all watch any of my videos at all, y'all already know I like frogging and flipping. So, I'm going to pick up my absolute favorite lure in the entire world right here. A Spro Popping Frog. The standard size since we have a big one out now and a small one. This is the original. And another thing, I've got right here a Missile Baits Destroyer. This is a bait that I've been using recently. Flipping a little bit deeper in clear water. I've been catching a bunch on it. But, it's just a standard creature bait with big tails. Missile Baits Destroyer. This is on a half-ounce weight. This is a 4-Alt Gamakatsu G-Power Hook. 22-pound Sunline Shooter. An 8-1 Metanium and a 7'6 Point Blank and Fuji rod that I hand-built myself. Very similar setup on this one. I've got the 7'6 Fuji Point Blank. I use a little bit bigger guides for my braid rods. This is 50-pound Sunline X-Plasma. And this is a 8-1 Shimano Corrado 70 MGL with a standard Spro Popping Frog. If I'm covering water shallow in the summer and I'm trying to flip or frog, I'm looking for shade. I'm looking for heavy cover. I'm looking for under docks, under laydowns. Anywhere that I feel like a fish is going to, you know, stop for a minute. You know, in between cruising around. Because in my opinion, in the summer, they cruise around a ton, like I've already said. And all those places where I feel like one just might stop for just a minute and maybe feed or something like that, I'm going to throw that Spro Frog or else flip that in there. Now, another thing that I do early in the morning or pretty much anytime if I've got big shade lines or something, and I feel like the frog is a little bit too slow, I'll just pick up a Dang Buzzbait and roll along with it. I throw this on the same 50 pound Sunline X-Plasma, a 8 to 1 gear ratio Shimano Corrado, 7 foot 3 point blank rod, 7 foot 3 medium heavy. And I just try to cover as much water as I possibly can with this. That's whenever I'm fishing shallow. Those are my three main things. I've got a covering water bait. I've got a slow down and fish top water bait. Sometimes I'll throw a prop bait or something like that. And then I've got the flipping bait if I get around any heavy cover. So then you're going to move a little bit more offshore. In the south, a big deal is throwing these deeper diving crankbaits. This right here is a Fat Papa 55. It doesn't dive super deep, but what I've been doing recently is fishing a lot of brush piles. This gets down there in that 8, 9, 10 range. On 10 pound tests, I actually made this thing hit like 11 or 12. I can't remember exactly the deepest I've got it to hit, but I get to hit the top of them brush piles in 9 or 10 pretty easily. And then that's my number one thing that I'm going to pull up and throw first because I feel like this bait catches the biggest fish in the brush pile immediately. And if I'm fishing offshore ledges, rock bars, anything like that, rock piles, stuff that's a little bit harder, I'll throw the bigger crankbait, you know, like a Fat Papa 70 or whatever I'm trying to throw that's a little bit deeper. I'll throw that to the harder cover that's a little bit deeper. And then you've got to have your follow-up bait. I'll do everything with this from flipping it around dock posts, marina docks. It's just a dang worm. In the summertime, it's hard to beat a worm. It's got a 4-0 round bend Gamakatsu hook standard. This is a three-eighths ounce worm weight. If I'm fishing, you know, 10 foot deep or less, I'll downsize from that three-eighths. If I'm fishing, you know, 12, 14, 15 feet, I'll usually go to this three-eighths or bigger brush piles where I kind of want to pull it down a little bit more. I'll go to a three-eighths and actually peg the bait to try to pull that worm down in the brush pile a little bit more. But sparse brush piles and stuff like that, I'll just use the three-eighths on the 4-0. And then you can throw any worm you want. This is just the one that I've been catching them on recently. This is the Missile Quiver. It's got a flat tail on it. It's just a super slender profile. And that's the main key for this time of year. And then last but not least, this is the Bail Out Pole right here. You got to have one of these ready at all time. This is a seven foot three, medium light point blank. Is that new? I built it not long ago. This is a new one that I just built. Yeah, you like that? It's pretty, ain't it? Yeah, I didn't know you built that one. Put my hook keeper down in here in case I'm going to use a drop shot. This is... I like that. This is the bait that you can throw anywhere you want to throw it. Just a shaky head. This is a Gamakatsu shaky head. It's got a unique design head on it. It's got a hook keeper that holds the worm on there. And it's got an Oceansu bend hook. So you really don't lose very many on this thing. But I throw this on a seven foot three, medium light, 10 pound Sunline Shooter Leader to... This is 18 pound Sunline X-Plasma Braid. And then this is just the Bail Out Rig. You can throw this around docks. You can throw this offshore on ledges. Put a little, you know, a five inch worm on it, a six inch worm on it, a four inch worm on it. Whatever you feel like you need to throw to get them to bite. But I throw this everywhere. I'll even pitch it up around seawalls if there's a little bit of shade or whatever. Some days that shaky head just gets bites whenever nothing else will. And I throw this no matter where. I leave it on the front deck rigged up all summer long. And I throw it whenever I feel like I'm around fish. I can't get to bite anything else. But for the most part in the summer, I'm covering water. I'm looking for those aggressive fish. So that's how I break down summer. That's kind of my approach to it. I feel like fish swim around a ton. And I just try to run a ton of spots where I feel like they're just gonna sit up for just a minute or two. So that's my summer approach. Now I can go do some summer fishing up in New York. If you have any suggestions for more true series videos, leave a comment down below and we'll get on some of them if there's some good ideas. Appreciate it guys.