In no particular order

 

megabass jerkbait

terminator spinnerbait

bladed jig (various brands)

neko rig (various brands)

ned rig

 

Most productive lures/baits for me in the 2025 season:

 

-Jackall - Dera Break (mini-chatter bait) with either a DEPS Deathadder or Nories SwitchOnTrailer

------caught both my PB LMB and PB SMB on this lure

-RAID Japan - Libero 5g and 7g sizes

------early in the year (May/early June before the vegetation grew/got thick) this lure was extremely productive -- had a 23 fish day with 18 of the fish caught on this lure

-RAID Japan - Batabata Craw on a CORE Tackle Hover Rig

------along weed lines the fish seemed to enjoy the back sliding nature of this lure

-DEPS BuzzJet Jr. (Wakebait)

------a hit or miss lure but caught 8 fish on 12 casts one day, including a tie for my PB LMB

-Megabass Spark Shad/Great Lakes Finesse Drop Kick Shad

------at any given time, shallow or deep, these caught fish for me

-Megabass Griffon (MR-X/SR-X/BFS)

------small mouth seemed to enjoy the action of this lure - tied my SMB PB on this lure

 

Some lures/baits that did not work for me in the 2025 season:

 

-Hellgrammites (various brands)

------not sure why these have just not worked for me, literally no catches on them, they look great, move great, seem like they would slay fish - but nada when using them

-Senko/Wacky Rig

------granted I do not throw them often (I love to fish and move/cast and crank) but when I did throw them I caught only a few fish (self-fulfilling prophecy ????)

-Jerkbaits (95 to 110 size) 

------this is clear operator error on my part, I need to practice and improve my technique

Hands down the AH-3 and B-2 by FAFO Fishing and the movement 80x by 6th sense. 

  These are my biggest players and the time of year that they most delivered.  I fished a lot of it all year long and caught fish, but certain times were the best times.  I also had a week long SM run in early april when they wanted fast falling 5/8-3/4oz 3-5" white hair jigs or a 4-5" white/silver deathadder on a ballhead and in late July a 4" cover scat worked in deep weedlines was by far the most productive bait I had for the LM's.  Neither really carried on after their window of dominance, but the bite on each is something I'm actively remembering because it was so intense.

 

Prespawn:

 

  Inland LM - 1/2oz zorro casting jig w/ D-bomb or sweet beaver

                     - 3/4oz DJ Cali swim jig w/ 5" gambler big EZ or 125mm D-walker

                     - Duo under walker

                     - 3/16oz jig and freeloader minnow

                     - Duel shad 75mm

 

  Big Lake SM - 1/4-1/2oz 2.5" tube; sk coffee and glf juvy craw, goby and motor oil being key colors

                         - 1/4-3/4oz finesse jigs.  Deps, raid, catch co, seiberts, jewel, keitech all were players

                         - 1/4-3/8oz jig and mooch minnow

                         - 1/2-3/4oz finesse scrounger; revival shad, 3.75" shad shape worm, 4-5" deathadder

                            (the more subtle S swim of straight tails was a revelation)

                         - 1/2oz smeltinator underspin; mooch minnow and 3" easy shiner

 

Postspawn:

 

  Inland LM - 3/8-1/2oz football head w/ a 4.8" Bullflat slowly swam mid column

                    - 1/16-1/4oz jig worm; quiver worm and boosa worm top producers

                    - 3/16-5/16 texas rigged worm; 7-10" straight tail and swimming worm

                    - Duel hardcore Bullet 5m+

 

  Big Lake SM - 1/4-3/8oz free rig; 3.5" dolive beaver

                         - 1/16-1/4oz jig worm; quiver worm

 

Late Summer // Early fall:

 

  Inland LM - 3/8oz kastmaster spoon

                    - 10g major craft jigpara

                    - 1/2-3/4oz deracoup

                    - 5-11g jighead mooch minnow

 

Big Lake SM - 5-11g jighead mooch minnow

                       - 1/4-1/2oz 2.5" tube

 

Late Fall // Early Winter:

 

  Inland LM - 3/4-1.25oz duh spoon

                    - 5g jighead and freeloader minnow

                    - 4-5" lake fork flutter spoon

 

  Big Lake SM - 1/4-1/2oz 2.5" tube

                         - 1/4-3/8oz jig and mooch minnow

                         - 3/8-1/2oz ballhead jig w/ 2.5" mayor, 3" juster, or 3" easy shiner

 

scott

 

Bladed Jig

Stick Worm (wacky and texposed)

frog

 

On 11/26/2025 at 11:25 AM, 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

 

Why the change to BFS? Catching any large bass?

Btw, I was looking for a jerbait rod and found an older post where you recommended the ALX Zolo rod. I just bought it for my birthday. Beautiful rod...haven't had a chance to use it yet. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

Haven't fished too much this year, but been using mostly jigs, flukes, and bouncing soft plastics off the bottom. I just invested in some of Core's hover rig hooks and a couple different soft plastics from Basstrix. Really cool baits!

I hate concede that it's over, but it's over for me 

It's been cold, it's been windy and now it's raining and in 2 days I'll be 73.

Kayak's been put away for the winter.

Top baits for me this year:

2.75" Keitech Swing Fat Impact on a 1/8oz ball head.

5" dinger wacky rigged.

Zman trd on a Neg rig, hadn't used it much till late summer, caught a lot on it.

Drop shot got some, but not like the last couple of years for me.

Texas rigged finesse or trick worm. Jigging spoon.

River smallies and a few creek largies for me

-green pumpkin goby TRD on 1/8 swinging ewg ned head -amazon cheapy

-Yamamoto 4" GP hula grub t rigged on 3/0 vmc

-flicker shad 7 in electric blue

-red craw money badger 2.75

-wacky rigged GP max scent generals on weedless wacky hooks

 

Those 5 rigs/lures probably caught 95% of my fish this year but I did catch quite a few on a trigged xzone 2.75" adrenacraw in summer craw in the creek, especially later in the year

 

 

 

Jig and craw, Bill Lewis Hammer Trap and SPRO Little John

On 11/25/2025 at 8:08 PM, Tackleholic said:

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.

Nearly forgot two of my post spawn favorites:  Berkley Wake Bull and BPS the Egg.

This was the year of the dropshot for me be it shallow for largemouth or 35' deep brushpiles it caught the fire out of fish with the Roboworm/Magic Worms.  
Finally got into topwater this year caught a good bit on the Showerblows, Jackal Riser, and Dog X Jr.  
Neko rigged them up a good bit when I found a worm bite with the Daiwa Neko Crawler.  
Paralleling a bank tossing the old Shap Rap 5 or a Frittside will always be a staple and producer for me.
Spring time the 110+1 JR was good around nearly any point on Lanier for quality spots.

Roboworm 6"
Daiwa Neko Crawler 5"
Frittside 5/5 JR
Z Man bladed jig Evo Mini Max
Vision 110+1 Jr
Showerblows 77.5/105
1/2 Oz Keitech Finesse Jig
Strike King Game Hawg
Shad Rap

Top 5 producers were
1. Yamamoto D-Shad -- The hero of May+June
2. 4.3 Keitech + Flashy Swimmer -- Outperformed other moving baits

3. Yamamoto Senko -- Usually weightless t-rig, but also wacky on a weighted head
4. Cavitron Buzzbait -- Morning topwater king
5. Yamamoto Hula Grub -- The best creature I know of

Runners up: Zoom Lizard, Booyah Covert Spinnerbait, Rage Menace & Space Monkey, Megbass Pop Max. 

 

Weirdly, I didn't use a finesse worm much, but they usually make the shortlist. And it looks like I didn't throw a crankbait or jerkbait at all this year.

On 11/29/2025 at 10:05 PM, Flushdraw said:

Why the change to BFS? Catching any large bass?

Btw, I was looking for a jerbait rod and found an older post where you recommended the ALX Zolo rod. I just bought it for my birthday. Beautiful rod...haven't had a chance to use it yet. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

Haven't fished too much this year, but been using mostly jigs, flukes, and bouncing soft plastics off the bottom. I just invested in some of Core's hover rig hooks and a couple different soft plastics from Basstrix. Really cool baits!

Spinning combo’s back seating finesse bass fishing became a PIA with inaccurate cast, line twist etc. Changing BSF eliminated all my spinning outfit issues plus increased casting distance using light finesse lures.

I still use my jig rod and Medium Splash-It top water casting rods.

 The average size bass where I fish is about 2 3/4 lbs when finesse fishing and BFS is a lot of fun fighting the average bass and enjoy it.

Did catch 1 good jig bass last year close to 8 lbs, just fish where my partner takes the boat.

Tom

 

This was my first year fishing Sieberts Jigs and couldn't be happier that I found them... "Thanks to this site."

I didnt get out much this year but enough to know I only had 2 that produced well above the others.

 

1) Megabass Jerkbaits

2) SCUM Trophy Frog

I don't write down every bass I catch. But I do write down every one over 3 lbs and the lure. Here are the lures in order. I did catch some good fish around the spawn that I did not write down. They were all from a small pond and most on a black/blue lizard. You can see that black/blue is my confidence soft plastic color.

 

Yum Dinger, black/blue flake - 7 fish

Whopper Plopper 110 in bone - 6

Super Spook, Jr. in gold - 3

X-Rap in clown - 3

Lipless Crank - 1

Pop-R - 1 

Johnson weedless Silver Minnow - 1 

I caught the most bass from April through the end of October on an underspin with a Mayor, Keitech, or Zako.

 

I caught the most 4-pound-plus bass on Mike Siebert spinnerbaits.

 

I also caught bass on T-Rigged crawdads, lizards, and worms, and wacky-rigged Senkos, as well as poppers and Ploppers. 

 

My funnest bass were caught on walking lures.

 

 

11 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

My funnest bass were caught on walking lures.

 

 

My favorite way as well. I had one day in July when they hammered the Super Spook, Jr all day in broad daylight. One bass came out of the water like a shark. I thought it missed the bait until it hit the water. And I got my 2nd biggest fish of the year, a 7-4, on the same lure Nov 15th.

7 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

One bass came out of the water like a shark. I thought it missed the bait until it hit the water.

 

Bass are cuckoo for walking baits! I like when they wake to the bait from 25' away.

I landed bass on dozens of lures in 2025.  All lures in picture caught bass 7 pounds or over except for the Rattle Trap, which was included because it was my best numbers bait.  Biggest was 9.9 pounds caught on a Junebug Ole Monster.  I tried hard to stretch the 9.9 to 10 pounds, but two scales reset a dozen times are better at telling the truth than I am. 

 

On 12/7/2025 at 12:21 PM, king fisher said:

I landed bass on dozens of lures in 2025.  All lures in picture caught bass 7 pounds or over except for the Rattle Trap, which was included because it was my best numbers bait.  Biggest was 9.9 pounds caught on a Junebug Ole Monster.  I tried hard to stretch the 9.9 to 10 pounds, but two scales reset a dozen times are better at telling the truth than I am. 

 

Dang, that's a ton of big fish. Wish we had that kind of size up here, it's a different ball game knowing you might hook into something like that. 

 

For all the hype new lures get, it seems like most people are slaying on tried and true baits.

Top Two:

 

Dirty Jigs California Swimjig

Megabass PopMax

 

 

Honorable Mention:

 

Frittside 5. 

 

Not for the numbers of fish caught, but for the quality of fish caught in only a couple of weeks time late this fall.

 

 

 

 

These were the big winners for me in 2025

 

-Bladed Jig (usually 3/8 in a Shad pattern)

 

-Casting Jig (various brands and weights)

 

-Texas rigged craw (Rage Craw and UV Speed Craw)

 

-Choppo 90

 

-DT 6

 

-3.5” Coffee Tube (Rigged Stupid)

 

-Wacky Rigged Senko

 

-3” Crush City Mayor on a GLF underspin

 

-Ned Rig

 

On 12/7/2025 at 12:21 PM, king fisher said:

I landed bass on dozens of lures in 2025.  All lures in picture caught bass 7 pounds or over except for the Rattle Trap, which was included because it was my best numbers bait.  Biggest was 9.9 pounds caught on a Junebug Ole Monster.  I tried hard to stretch the 9.9 to 10 pounds, but two scales reset a dozen times are better at telling the truth than I am. 

 

The larger popper on the right (bluegill color) do you know the brand? I pulled one out of a tree last year and haven’t been able to place it.