Glide Baits in the Summer: Big Bass Strategies from BassResource.com

These are glide baits. What is a glide bait? Glide bait is a hard plastic lure that has a single joint in the middle to where the tail swings back and forth like that now.

There are a ton of handmade options out there on the market. There are some production models out there like this SPRO Chad Chad. We're going to kind of give you some general ideas on and I classify these in three different sizes. This is a medium-sized glide. Yes, it is 7 plus inches long to the tip of the tail, but I'm considering this a medium size glide. There are smaller glides that are in that 5 to 6 inch range. Then there are glides which are in that 8 to 10 inch range, each of those kind of are in a different category as far as I'm concerned.

First of all, we're going to talk about the setup on what we need to be throwing these on with glide baits. In that medium range, I usually use 18 to 20 lbs Sunline FC Sniper. I like that Sniper. It has a little bit of stretch to it. It's a little bit forgiving because we're talking about baits that are two to four oz. With that middle size, with the smaller glides, the five to six inch, I'm going to probably using 16 or 18 lbs Sunline Sniper. Kind of that a little bit lighter line allows that bait to be a little bit more free and then on the larger glides. Only gonna go up to 20 LB test. If you go bigger than that, say 25 LB test, you're gonna start to inhibit your line and your action of the baits. Even with a really big glide bait like a Depps 250, a big, big glide bait that's gonna have inhibiting action for that. So you don't want that. You want that glidebait to be free and natural and very erratic.

We'll get to the action here in just a few minutes. But as we're going to start fishing that glidebait, the line size is important. The rod and the reel are important as well. I like a high-speed reel. This is a 150 size reel. This is a GS model from Seviin. The 150 size will work for your smaller and medium size glide baits. When you go to that 8 to 10 inch, you might need to go up to a 300 size reel, a little bit bigger reel so that it can handle that 6 to 8 or even 10 oz glide bait. That's when you're getting serious, that's when you're getting heavy.

And then the rod needs to have that action to where it's a heavier type action. As you can see right there, it's a heavier, but it's moderate. It's moderate, which means that that action bends throughout the rod. It's not just at the tip like you would a flippin stick. You don't really want to throw these baits on a flipping stick. You want to have a swim bait style rod, which is a heavy action or extra heavy action on those larger baits. But with that more moderate action that will help you cast the baits better. It'll just kind of pendulum back and swing and you're really just kind of tossing these baits out there because they're so big and heavy and with that joint, that joint will turn it sideways and the bait will sometimes want to go this way or that way.

Not the most accurate baits you'll ever cast, I can promise you that because of the nature of them. And they can catch the wind and kind of take off a few feet to the left or a few feet to the right, but just know that you're going to be tossing them. And I'll also pitch my glide baits to the targets that I want to as well. You can pitch these baits because they are so heavy. You can pitch them to where you want them.

But as I mentioned earlier, high-speed reel. I like an 8-to-one gear ratio. You can get away with a 7-to-1, but I don't like anything slower than that because a lot of the action that you're going to impart on that glide bait is with the reel, with the reel handle and the speed of the reel. So you're going to be doing different reel bumps with that reel in order to make that bait go side to side. That's kind of how you want to start to fish it.

For summertime glide bait fishing, you want to think about where those fish are going to be. So early in the summer you're still going to have some fish shallow because you're going to be around those brim beds. So just think early summer, there's still some shallow fish, brim beds. There could be some fish starting to transition as the summer goes on. A lot of those fish are going to transition to deeper structure like brush piles, stumps, points, ledges, humps, things like that. That's where those fish are going to be.

Don't think for one second that a glidebait is only a shallow bait or it's only for fishing less than 5 feet deep. OK, you take this SPRO Chadshad and you throw it out there and you start chopping it and working it, and that bait's going to stay two to three feet under the surface, right? So you're thinking I can't use that in a brush pile that's 20 feet deep.

Well, there's ways to weight these glidebaits. You can use board weights or like sticker style weights. And they come with like four or five, six in a pack. There's a handful of different brands out there. You can take those board weights or the stick on weights and you can stick one or two on the flat belly. Most glide baits have a flat belly like this right here. You can stick one or two on that belly and then you want to put most of them in between the two hooks. Specifically closer to the front is where you want to center the weight, right in this region right here. You can just stack two or three depending on how fast you want that bait to fall, to be able to get down to where those fish are.

You're going to throw that bait, count it down. 5-6 seconds you can really just pitch it in water that's clear and see how long it takes to get 5 or 6 feet. If you don't have live scope or forward-facing sonar, you can just pitch it out there and say OK, 1-2-3, OK, 3 seconds it went 5 feet. So if I want to throw it out there and get it to 10 feet, I got to wait 6 seconds. Let that kind of be your guide on how much weight to put on that glide bait before you start working it.

And once you start working it, you want to have that cadence that you're going to keep in your mind that you're trying to draw that fish's attention to that glide bait, and once you draw their attention to the bait, then you want to get them excited and then you want them to just stomp it.

What I'm telling you is when you throw it out there, you might work it slow, two or three chops. Boom, boom, boom, boom, and then start getting choppy with it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Then you get a little bit more erratic. But once you kind of get that, maybe get that fish's attention, you get them start looking like, hey, what's going on over there? Maybe they start easing that way and then it starts getting erratic. A lot of times that's when they get excited. They'll run over there and snatch it.

You can visually see this if you fish up, let's say around brim beds or shallow areas where those big brim eaters are hanging out, but maybe they're not quite like in the course of wolfing down those brim, they're just kind of watching them or they're kind of just waiting for the opportunity. And you throw that glide bait somewhere near that brim bed and you start getting choppy and they think, oh, oh, there's a brim, there's a big fish that's in trouble. And that's going to trigger a lot of those.

And we're talking like four or five 6 LB bass, bigger bass. Especially largemouth on this brim that are just going to be like beelining for that thing. A lot of times with the brim bed eaters, you'll get one or two shots, one shot at them, maybe two shots if you're lucky. They might run up there and flash on it. If they run up there and flash on it, sometimes you can repeat throw it at them and get them to bite, aggravate them. But a lot of times it's not like they're going to either hit it or not the first time and then they're kind of done.

You might have to switch baits. Maybe you switch to a shaky head, drop shot or jig or something like that. It's on the bottom a little more camouflaged, a little smaller. But a lot of times you can get that fish—that especially that big fish's attention—with the glide bait just like this right here.

So once we get back out there to the deeper structure. Like I said, we're either gonna weight. I like doing the weight on the belly. You can add weight to that front treble hook and get that bait to fall a little bit faster and still have the same action. But I'm not a huge fan of putting a lot of weight on that treble hook.

I feel like that your hookups are not gonna be as good and then when that bait is moving, that the weight on the hook is gonna wanna always pull that hook down. So that as your bait's moving, sometimes that hook is down. It might swing up a little bit, but then it's going to immediately swing back down. If you're fishing that around brush, you're asking it to get hung up a little bit more. I don't think you have as good a hookup ratio with that weight that's on the treble hook.

So that's why I try to put as much, if not all of the weight on the belly of the bait during that summertime period. And when we're talking summertime period, we're talking, you know, a lot more gizzard shad. The gizzard shad are after the threadfins. So that's going to be a little bit later in most southern impoundments, middle part of the country, that's gonna be later in the spring and the early summer. So those fish might still be programmed to eating bigger fish like those gizzard shad, if that lake has those gizzard shads.

So that's where I really feel like those fish being programmed on a bigger style bait like a Chad Chad or like those gizzard shad will make the Chad Shad really, really good.

And I'll get real quickly in the summertime into colors. This is just a regular threadfin color. It's a really realistic color. It looks good. Not always am I going to throw the most realistic color. There are a lot of times that I'm going to be throwing bone. I think bone or like a dull white color is a really, really good option because that dull white, it really stands out.

If you're—don’t be afraid to throw glide baits in stained water, even during the summertime. Don’t let any stain in the water deter you, even if there's one to two foot visibility. Those fish can feel the vibration of that glide bait, whether they're in that brush pile or around that brim bed or up shallow around those docks, whatever it might be. But that bone white can be a really good color. I love this color in a bunch of different glide baits. And that thing can be absolutely killer.

And then when you have more of your slightly different shad variations, you can experiment with that to try to find out what those fish are keying on. If you're fishing a lake that has trout in it, a rainbow trout color glide bait is really, really hard to beat. So if you know that the lake has rainbow trout in it, don't hesitate to pick up that rainbow trout color and throw that color glide bait.

So summertime—great time to throw glide baits. Don't hesitate to get out there and go for those big fish. You can catch numbers, you can catch 2 pounders. Don't think that just because you're throwing a glide bait that it means you're not going to catch small ones too, because you can. But yes, you definitely have a better chance to catch a big one, so get on out there.