Lures for Shallow Water Largemouths This Spring

Shallow water cover fishing and largemouth extraction calls for power fishing with heavier rod and reel set-ups and braided lines. With casting targets abound, the major strategy will be pitching and flipping jigs and plastics into the cover. If you plan to cover water throughout shallow bays and along shorelines, the secondary strategy will be casting with search lures.

When largemouths hold to cover, go target fishing. Weed cover might not yet be present, but remnants from the season prior, and wood, will attract and hold them.

Pitching and Flipping

Pitching and flipping weedless jigs in combination with craw and creature trailers such as Bizz Baits Bizz Bugs and Killer Craws, creature baits that includes YUM Wooly Bugs and Missile Baits D-Bombs, and slither rigs gets to big largemouths that bury themselves into jungles of wood, pads, and near-shore cover. Don’t overlook the simplicity of a Texas Rigged flipping tube either – in April and May, 2022, this minimalist bait was hard to put away.

The creature bait lure category encompasses a major variety of shapes and styles from several brands. Many of them will work as well. All of my flipping stick and heavy action casting setups are 7-foot and longer rods, spooled up with 20 lb. and 30 lb. Cortland Masterbraid, and 50 lb. Silent Flip for jungle and wood extraction.

Reels featuring a flipping switch aid in pitching accuracy, enabling you to land jigs into openings and within inches from where big largemouth could ambush. I still fish with my old, original Quantum Accurist PT’s that are over 10 to 15 years old. These models were popularized by legendary flipper and pitcher, Gary Klein. 7.0;1 gear ratio reels and higher are a must for quick hook-sets, power, and high frequency line retrieve. St. Croix’s Victory Flip’N (VTC74HMF) is a wonderfully lightweight, sensitive, and strong rod for this task.

Want to finesse your way with medium heavy action spinning gear also? Sure, a weightless tube, and Texas rigged lizard or stickbait such as a 5” Kalin’s Wac-O worm in Baby Bass can succeed. Run 15 or 20 lb. Masterbraid as your reel’s main line, and attach a 3 ft. section of 12 or 16 lb. fluorocarbon leader for stealth as well as abrasion resistance. Size 30 or larger spinning reels will aid in line retrieve, plus have the best drag systems in the event you connect with a heavy line puller.

Casting with search lures is always plan-B strategy, and common when covering water and the boat is slowly encroaching flipping and pitching targets. Ripping and burning a variety of Z-Man Chatterbaits through the shallows accompanied by a variety of trailer styles triggers exhilarating strikes.

My chatterbaits are best-presented by  my St. Croix Mojo Bass Glass Rip-N-Chatter (MGC72HM) paired with 7:3.1 high-speed Quantum PT reel. Line choice varies by cover type, but I settle for either 15 lb. fluorocarbon or 20 lb. Cortland Masterbraid.

Swim Jigs

While pitching and flipping with heavy heads excels for bottom-oriented bass, swim jigs are designed to be cast and retrieved high in the water column and effectively through cover. Lighter in weight, with head a design to cut through the water, they can be swum through current, vegetation, wood, rocks, and wherever baitfish and prey lurk.

The swim jig’s combination of density, compact size, and high hooking percentage caters best to being a swimming presentation. It becomes most effective paired with a trailer.

Swim jigs such as Freedom Tackle’s FT Series score huge numbers of fish because when perfectly rigged, with correct color combination paired with trailer, it can be utilized as a power and finesse presentation. Cone shaped heads will empower you to rip and power the jig through dense cover, with thin brush guard maintaining a weedless package. Trailers are the business end of a swim jig, and play a more important role than the jig itself. Trailers are what ultimately trigger strikes. It’s always important to mix and match between the different variables of tail action, size, color combination, and how it triggers fish. There are so many potential trailer styles to consider, but I always fish with baits that have previously worked for me as standalone lures (a rig of its own, by itself).

My 3/8 oz. and ½ oz. swim jig with trailer concoctions each get fished with the Mojo Bass Dock Sniper (MJC70HF), and Legend Tournament Bass Dock Sniper (LBC70HF). Each reel is spooled with 20 lb. Cortland Masterbraid.

Lipless Cranks and Swimbaits

Looking to cover water even quicker and fish more aggressively? Burning lipless crankbaits such as Strike King Red Eye Shads and a Rat-L-Traps through shallow bays and parallel to shorelines entices aggression and reactionary strikes. This is the best cold water early season tactic.  

Subtler presentations like swimming 3.8” Kalin’s Sizmic Shad paddletails rigged on weedless Freedom Tackle Hydra heads through emerging vegetation scores giants. So too will soft swimbaits such as 3” Storm WildEye Shiners. While everyone else is throwing their expensive swimbaits, I’ll throw my cheap baits and catch more bass. Downsized swimbaits represent a new, overlooked way of catching big largemouth. It’s also a potent presentation that has not yet been exploited by the masses to catching largemouth bass during the early spring season. They are an ideal early spring alternative when more seasonal power fishing techniques fail.

The WildEye Live Shiner is my all-time top producer for spring largemouth, catching numbers as well as some of the largest fish available. It is an internally weighted lifelike swimming bait available in 3 and 4-inch models. With the soft outer body molded over a 3/8 ounce weighted inner body, it has identical shape and retrieving properties of a lipless crankbait, and an incredibly lifelike swimming action results. For improved hooking percentages, I recommend removing its VMC treble hook located on the belly and replacing it in favor of Trokar’s TK300 round bend treble hooks in sizes 4 or 5. With a steady medium retrieve through the shallows, count on big bass finding it and striking mid retrieve. Where big largemouths roam, you can usually get them to commit on these internally weighted, molded, soft compact plastics.