I'd been hoping for another fishable day, but it's been sub-zero, windy and dark. And the water is now frozen in many places, so that's all she wrote!

 

It was an odd year for me as I had shoulder surgery and couldn't really fish until mid July. My most common baits are in the pic, from left to right, top down.  See list below.

 

When I did get out a lot of my usual patterns were not producing in the usual places and there were many days where only one bait was the juice. Usually big topwaters, senkos, swimbaits, jerkbaits and ned rigs are at the top of my list. And they barely registered. 

 

I seemed to replace senkos with flukes and caught way more fish than normal on a bladed jig/hybrid hunter. 

 

Couple of new entries: magnum fluke caught a heap, which shocked me. And the Rapala twitching mullet.  I've never heard of anyone fishing the mullet, but when jerked about as fast as possible it was the most erratic bait I've ever fished and triggered a lot of violent bites, though it was a serious workout. 

 

Best fish were caught on the bladed jig/hybrid hunter. The hybrid hunter is now the only crankbait I have high confidence in around grass, which is most of my area. 

 

Old faithfuls: Pop Max, Krazy Flapper 3.6 and 3Xd. The white 3XD specifically. It is a pike magnet. The little rover walking bait catches me a few nice smallmouth every year. 

 

In Order:

Flukes

Bladed Jig and Beast Coast Blade Runner

Hybrid hunter jr.

Magnum fluke - Bubblegum Mainly

Mini Max with Kalins Scrub 

R2S Rover 98

Pop Max

Keitech Crazy Flapper 3.6

3XD - white

Keitech on underspin

3.5 Yamatunuki

Twitching Mullet

Scum Frog (I think)

Evergreen Flat Side

Spro Rat 30

Hog Farmer A-Rig

30 minutes ago, Cdn Angler said:

 

 

It was an odd year for me as I had shoulder surgery and couldn't really fish until mid July.

 

Depending on where you live, that means bass season just opened!!  LOL 😆 

 

Last weekend in June is season opener here. November 30 th last day of season.

Top 10

 

Mag Speed Worm T rigged

Trick worm weightless 

10 “ ribbon tail free rigged

1 oz siebert grass jig and swim bait trailer 

Various sizes and models buzzbaits

Spro and Copper Red Baits frogs

Red Eye Shad

Hybrid Hunter

DT6

bladed jig

 

honorable mention:

 

Fat Free Fingerling

Big O

Frittside

Silent Sgt Lipless

Mepps Aglia #3

 

My mainstay, for as long as I care to admit, has been a jig. To be specific, a skirted, Arkie style one. A close second is an action tail worm, usually a ribbon tail, or speed worm. Up until this year, a tube was my second choice, but I found myself reaching for a worm more often this year.A trick worm rounds out the majority of my soft plastics.

For hard baits, Spooks, Cranks (mostly Bombers), spinnerbaits, and prop baits. My biggest LM this year was caught on a spinnerbait, which was a first for me as a jig has held that spot for as long as I can remember.

1 hour ago, RRocket said:

Depending on where you live, that means bass season just opened!!  LOL 😆 

 

Last weekend in June is season opener here. November 30 th last day of season.

I am in Ontario so same here for the most part. It was shoulder surgery so even when I started out I only had a couple hours worth of casts in my arm. I was hoping for a nice November, but it's been the opposite!

58 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Top 10

 

Mag Speed Worm T rigged

Trick worm weightless 

10 “ ribbon tail free rigged

1 oz siebert grass jig and swim bait trailer 

Various sizes and models buzzbaits

Spro and Copper Red Baits frogs

Red Eye Shad

Hybrid Hunter

DT6

bladed jig

 

honorable mention:

 

Fat Free Fingerling

Big O

Frittside

Silent Sgt Lipless

Mepps Aglia #3

 

How do you rig the magnum speed worm? Is it the "u tail" or the flatter one? I've never seen the magnum speed worm in stores around here.

Megabass Karashi 

Black Label Cliff Pace Snapshot 

Spro KGB Chad Shad 

6" Bass Mafia Unloaded Daingerous swimbait 

4" Rapala Crush City Mayor 

KVD Mag Worm

Dobyns Beast Spinnerbait 

Riot Baits Lil Creeper 

 

@Cdn Angler - I like a 5/0 gamakatsu offset worm hook and a pegged 3/16-7/16 oz tungsten sinker and I throw that guy into the heaviest stuff on the lake/pond and work it all manner of ways to elicit strikes.

 

My favorite colors are Green Pumpkin, Black and Red Bug.

 

It’s the 7” with the little curly tail that kicks.  Caught me piles of nice fish and tied my PB or 11 lb 5 oz with one back in May.  It’s a mainstay 12 months a year when I am fishing heavy cover in clearer water.

Zoom Fluke , Wacky Worm several brands. War Eagle spinnerbaits. Zoom Z craw, Zoom brush Hog, Rage Bug ,Rage Swimmer and any Topwater .

I had my fishing log summarized and surprisingly I found out that my most successful bait was a frog. It didn't seem like it at the time but I was crushing it on topwaters this year. In terms of lures I used the most I would say that the bladed jig was my top bait by far, followed up with the frog, fluke, flipping jig, whopper plopper, jerkbait, dropshot, tube, karashi, and finesse swimbait. I made it a mission this year to get better at some lures I don't use enough, and as a result I gained a lot of confidence with jerkbaits and tubes. I have been grinding out the a-rig and bigger swimbaits but I still have a ways to go when it comes to building my skills with these two...

Top baits for the year. Little timber/rock, lots of weeds. I spent at least 50% of my time scoping. Every time they bite it's like watching a wake coming up on your topwater. 

 

Onshore:

Mag speed worm

bladed jig

 

Scoping:

Jackall Driftfry (4") on a variety of jig heads. Learned to slow down the rolling. 

A-rig (star player)

Hangover (fat 6" line through) - this bait is so so fun to fish. They just smoke it. And the line through means few missed fish, once I learned to watch for the line rub on the insert.

 

Up and comers:

Neko Rig

Super-sweep (tall 5.2" Swimbait, beast hook. looks like a gizzard or a gill)

 

Honorable mention:

T-rigged bug or brush hog

 

Unexpectedly poor results vs last year on same water:

Frog

Slither rig/jig

 

Forgot to fish and definitely should have:

Punch Rig - there were some days I straight out couldn't find the shore fish and I'm pretty sure they were just buried up in the grass. Our grass grows out to about 10'. 

 

And finally, I got a crappie rod and a few baits. Now I can almost always answer the question - what is it that I'm seeing? Found gills way offshore on a tree, and lots and lots of barfish (like a baby white bass), and the occasional crappie stack. 

 

 

 

 

I didn't get out much, but my best catchers this year were:

 

1/16oz Shakey Head with Zoom Finesse Worm in Green Pumpkin Magic

1/8oz Shakey Head with Zoom Trick Worm in Green Pumpkin

Drop Shot,  1/8oz teardrop weight, #1 EWG with Zoom Baby Brush Hog in Green Pumpkin

1/16oz Ned with  Mr. Twister Ned Ringer in Green Pumpkin

Top baits for the year.

Spinnerbait  " been so for years "

Jigs  " biggest fish every year "

Jackall Flickshake GPC  " numbers " 

Ned rig  " very surprised by it this year "

Drop-shot  " hard to beat in clear water ".

LC Slender Pointer 97, asst. Scroungers, Megabass 110 plus 1, swim jigs, Megabass Magdraft 6", Bass Mafia 5" Loaded Daingerous, LC Gunfish in 3 sizes.  I have all that's needed to play video games, but that is boring and I fish for fun.  Weather is getting cold and windy but the water was 62 degrees today so it's not over yet.

Only got to fish a half dozen times due to medical reasons. Only had a few baits that did well.

 

Buzzbaits Cavitron

Bomber Prop A top water bait

Bomber Model A crankbait

Spinnerbait 

Tubes.

 

I fished tubes with exposed hooks, texas rigged and stupid rigs.I really expanded on tube fishing this year.

This year's top baits:

 

1/4 oz. Strike King Swim Jig 

6" Weightless straight tail worm

4" Finesse worm on a split shot rig.

Weightless Fluke

Pop-R

Mine are pretty simple.

1.  Zoom Trick Worm

2. Yamamoto Senko

3. Berkley Frittside

4. Bandit 100

 

BFS year so the lures changed.

Megabass Karashi

Megabass X Nanahan

Evergreen JXJ

US co Reaper 

Kastmaster spoon

All under 1/4 oz.

Tom

 

Some new and some old but the notables for me this year in no particular order:

 

Neko rigged zoom trick worm- new for me this year and very effective

bladed jig- produces every year but this was a good year

jighead minnow- different sizes and weights depending on the lake.  The boat helped here.

spinnerbait- when you need one you need one

buzzbait- my usual black and chartreuse in 1/4 or 3/8.  Not the best BB year but still got a few.

texas rigged ragebug- consistently my biggest fish lure the past couple years

 

Other lures caught a couple fish here or there, but these are the lures that produced fish day in and day out.  Once you found which of these was the one for the day you were going to catch some fish.

 

Notable nothings this year:

- I know of one fish I caught on a jig this year- swim jig, pitching jig, or otherwise. I’ve defaulted to the ragebug where others would throw a jig and I should throw them more but I haven’t.  This has been a trend the past couple years for me but at least in prior years the swim jig would still get some play.  One fish on a white swimjig in the dark is all I can recall.  

- Big swim baits that caught fish last year like the 6” Magdraft did nothing for me this year.  I don’t think I had a single follow.  I’ll keep it rigged and fish it next year but this wasn’t the year. 

- Ned rig- after having 25 bass days three consecutive trips last year I’m struggling to remember a Ned rig fish.  Swapping to the neko took some of the usage time, but I still had a Ned, a neko, and a jighead minnow rigged most trips.  Two out of three ain’t bad.

 

Certainly some of the differences have been changes in the lakes I’m fishing.  Having the boat this year I fished one lake a bunch that I’d never really fished in the kayak.  And some of the kayak only lakes got cut.  One of the lakes that fishes either craft got cut after two trips because the ramp is so shallow that it’s painful to load the boat and the fishing wasn’t worth it.  Another lake got into the rotation despite its awful ramp because it was a consistent producer. Those two swapped their time and both fish very differently.  My favorite lake had a down year for numbers, but I still caught a good few 4-4.5# fish. The weather was another big difference.  Almost every trip this year was bluebird sky, sunny, and some amount of wind from 0 to 15 mph.  No rain all summer and few cloudy days.

 

But, my year isn’t over year.  Next week is going to be COLD but I’l still get out in it.  Looking for my first ever December bass.  

On 11/26/2025 at 12:25 PM, WRB-2.0 said:

BFS year so the lures changed.

Megabass Karashi

Megabass X Nanahan

Evergreen JXJ

US co Reaper 

Kastmaster spoon

All under 1/4 oz.

Tom

 

How did the Karashi go? I saw one today in person for the first time and shockef how tiny it is relative to the price. And light line + pike.

1 hour ago, Cdn Angler said:

How did the Karashi go? I saw one today in person for the first time and shockef how tiny it is relative to the price. And light line + pike.

The treble hooks are size 10 and light wire, weakness with the Karashi. 
The package says the weight is 3/16 oz but with hooks weighs close to 1/4 oz. 
Wouldn’t fish a Karashi around toothy fish like Pike.

Tom

Top lure again and for the last decade is not just a fluke… but 

 

• A specific fluke - 5 inch Caffeine Shad. And not on any hook… 

 

•But an Owner 4/0 Twistlock LIGHT hook. Mostly a 3/32 oz, unless you are dock skipping - then the weightless variety.  A typical EWG hook just doesn’t work this plastic well. 
 

Catches everything - east, north, west, south… rivers, lakes, reservoirs… Let it swim on its own, more than working or twitching it. The air bubble tail is the difference maker. 

Yup. Done for the year.  
 

Hybrid Hunter

Siebert Swim Jig w. Craw trailer 

Speed Trap

1/4 oz.  Custom painted Hot Lips

Ned

Drop Shot

Hula Grub 176

Custom Painted DLN and Wiggle Wart

Siebert Cosmic DW Spinnerbait

And yes, Wacky Senko

For river smallmouth:

 

Rapala Skitterprop…shad

spinnerbait…willow, white/chartreuse

Rapala Shadow Rap =  Flat Rap silver

Zoom Super Fluke…glimmer blue = houdini

Rebel Middle Wee Craw…ditch brown

Megabass Karashi

Big TRD on a Z-Man Power Finesse Ned Head

Toad Thumper Swamper Frog in Bad Gill

Hag's Hurricane Bladed Jig w/Spunk Shad Trailer (has replaced the high $ stuff)

5 in Senko in GP/Chartreuse Tail

 

Honorable mention because I only fished this one, spectacular outing recently. 

Z-Man Fuzzy TRD on a free rig. On a 1/8 oz weight, this bait will float up about 4-6 inches if you give it some slack line.

 

 

This is fun. 

 

Most productive baits were a Perch Popmax, brown CL8 Mighty Mouse, and 6" Fat Roboworm in Pumpkin Punisher.

 

Big fish of 5 and change came on a Bullfrog Launch Frog. Caught a couple north of 4 on the Popmax. Largest drop shot fish was on a 4.5" Margarita Mutilator curly tail.

 

Missed a *giant* on the Mouse. Came straight up out the water like Shark Week. Getting into larger rats but not as productive yet.