Q&A AI
What lure to use in northern Virginia now?
To provide the most accurate lure recommendation for bass fishing in Northern Virginia, I'd need to know the current water temperature and the specific time of year you're referring to. However, I can offer some general advice based on seasonal patterns.
If it's early spring and the water temperatures are starting to rise from the cold winter, bass will begin moving from their deep winter haunts to staging areas in preparation for the spawn. During this time, a red lipless crankbait like a Rat-L-Trap can be very effective as bass are known to target crawfish, which turn red during this period. Jerkbaits, both suspending and floating, are also a good choice as they can mimic the erratic action of baitfish that bass prey on.
As the season progresses and the water warms up, you can start using faster-moving baits such as spinnerbaits and medium-diving crankbaits. Soft plastic stickbaits rigged Texas-style can be dynamite, especially in green pumpkin or watermelon red flake, which are excellent colors for imitating natural forage.
If you're fishing in the fall, topwater baits like a Zara Spook or a popper can be very effective early in the season when the bass are aggressively feeding on baitfish at the surface. As the water cools and baitfish become less active, switch to slower presentations like a football jig or a blade bait to mimic the more lethargic movements of forage during this time.
During the winter, when the water is at its coldest, finesse techniques tend to shine. A four-inch finesse worm on a drop shot or split shot rig, worked very slowly, can be effective. Hair jigs and suspending jerkbaits are also excellent choices, as they can be presented with minimal movement to entice cold, slow-moving bass.
Remember, these are general guidelines, and local conditions such as water clarity, cover, and forage availability can influence lure selection. If you can provide the current water temperature or more details about the season, I can give you a more tailored recommendation.
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Video09:34
11:01
How To Choose Lures For Each Season | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → water warms up enough. So, that's gonna be where
they're congregated. Now you got better light penetration. They're more active feeding now,
they are gorging themselves so you can get to faster-moving baits finally. So, it becomes
a little more exciting time to bass fish. Your lures at this time, well, you can shuck
the suspending jerkbait and replace that with a floating jerkbait like a Rapala number 11
floating jerkbait. You can use the lipless vibrating crankbaits and shallow to medium diving
crankbaits. Spinnerbaits are really good this time of year, so is your soft plastic stickbait.
That can be dynamite this time of year. Your Texas rigs plastics are really good as well.
So, those are the things I'd be incorporating right now. Your colors are gonna be a little
more vibrant, a little more natural-looking. Again with the lipless crankbaits, you can
still use that chrome and black back, but now I would start incorporating crawdad colors, your
brown crawdads and your red crawdad colors. Your crankbaits, you want the natural shad-looking
colors, but also you wanna incorporate some of the colors that are the baitfish in your area.
Perch is really good. When you're up north, a lot of perch start...they're spawning and
when the temperatures are in the low 50s, so they're very active, a lot of bass feed on them
that time of year. So, perch pattern crankbaits. And also those red shades, anything with red in
it works really well for your crankbaits. Your plastics, green pumpkin, red watermelon seed are
your bread-and-butter colors that you'd really be
Transcript
Video06:48
08:10
How To Choose Lures For Each Season | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → the winter. That's where these bass are gonna be
holding. Now you can focus on using suspending jerkbaits, deep diving suspending jerkbaits.
They just sit there and barely move. Again, you're trying to imitate those baitfish
that are still struggling in those colder temps. We're talking now of about mid-40s to
about 50, at least in my neck of the woods. But you can now start using a little bit faster
moving baits such as a lipless crankbait like a Rat-L-Trap or a Booyah, One Knocker. You can also
start using a spinnerbait. A large spinnerbait, rolling it really slow on the bottom is
a good choice during this time of year. Again, those soft plastic stick baits, I would
still use those behind, you know, a drop shot or a split shot rig to get down a little bit
deeper. And the Texas rig baits, you're still gonna be using those. Either you can use a bullet
sinker or be on a Carolina rig. And the finesse, you know, especially when they get those fronts
that come through, the finesse baits are gonna be your go-to, again, behind a drop shot or a split
shot rig. That's gonna be what your mainstay bread and butter is gonna be during this time of
year. Color-wise, now you're a little bit further up in the water column, so you get a little more
light penetration for your jerkbaits and your deep crankbaits and your Rat-L-Traps. Looking at silver
and black, chrome and black, that's basically it.
Transcript
Video10:19
11:33
5 Best Bass Lures For Each Season | How To | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → but very slowly. So just crawl a football
jig on the bottom and you get that action. A quarter ounce blade bait works really well.
Just jigging it off the bottom. It looks like a dying bait fish. When the water temperatures
get into the 40s and the lower they go, mid 40s and lower, the more bait fish start
dying off. And so a quarter ounce blade bait works really well under those situations.
Hair jigs rule the world during this time of year. Hair jigs can work year round, but hair jigs
are exceptionally good during the winter time. You just barely have to move them, and the hair
just undulates and it looks like it's breathing and that that's all you need. Just need to
move it just very, very little and let the hair do the work and bass just can't resist it.
And then finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention throwing a suspending jerk bait. Those
work extremely well during this time of year, because again, bait fish are lethargic. Some of
them are disorientated because of the cold weather and the cold water. You throw a suspending jerk
bait and the key here with fishing it is letting long, long pauses in between so that
it looks like it's barely alive. And then just give it slight jerks in between.
You're not going to work at real hard jerks and short pauses, but rather the opposite,
and you're going to have a lot more success.
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Video00:00
02:12
7 LURES for 40 Degree WATER (They STILL Bite) by BassFishingHQ → hey guys tyler berger here with bass fishing hq and today i want to talk to you about seven lures that you can use when the water temperatures are in their 40s so stay tuned it's going to be a good one this video is brought to you by the bass hat this hat that i'm wearing now with a unique wooden bourbon barrel patch on the top if you guys want to help support the channel you can click the link in the description and pick up a bass hat this one here is one of my personal favorites with the camo and the white mesh so the best thing about these lures that i'm about to show you is that they can work kind of in that fall time when you're kind of going from fall to winter and then when you're kind of coming out of winter and going into spring so today you know it's it's a fall day it's pretty typical fall fishing day junk fishing caught one on a ned rig caught one on a spinner bait caught one flipping and the water's not yet in the 40s it's still in the 50s but with that being said there's there's nobody in the parking lot i think most guys this time of the year are hunting i'm not even sure if it's hunting season i just fish a lot of guys don't think about bass fishing when you have 40 degree water
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Video11:22
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Top 3 BAITS for FEBRUARY Bass Fishing! by Nathan Quince Fishing → water temperature though because this is a very shallow diving bait so i tend not to fish this one until the waters warm up just a little bit or you have a lot of sunny days i will often opt for the shad wrap or the dts much sooner now there are baits like the spro littlejohn md's and the regulars that will catch fish as well in these colder waters like i said this is a plastic bait and it does have rattles to it so that rattle just a little bit extra noise to it for some reason in cold water they really don't like that and since it's plastic it has a different action than a balsa wood crankbait would so it just i feel like it throws the fish off just a little bit and you'll get more bites if you're using a balsa wood crankbait not saying you won't catch fish on this one but if i had the choice i will be throwing a balsa wood crankbait in any water under 50 degrees and as for the color selection i keep it very simple with my crankbaits obviously if that water is clear again i'm gonna go with that natural shad color anything in the whites sexy shad just a plain shad color anything like that that's what these fish are going to try and feed on the most because that's the most available forage this time of year if the water
Transcript
Video09:01
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5 Best Bass Lures For Each Season | How To | Bass Fishing by Bass Fishing Tips & Techniques by BassResource → and that works as very effective during the fall.
The early part of the fall, top water baits like a zara spook or a popper that look like an injured
bait fish can be very productive, but then as we get mid-fall and those fish start to die off,
it doesn't work as well, but that's okay because falls are a heck of a fun time to throw top water
baits. So I definitely even it's a short span, I'd be throwing them during the fall.
All right. So now let's talk a bit about the winter baits. Winter is a little
bit easier to pick baits for because this is when, of course, you have the coldest
time of the year. The water's at its coldest, which means the bait fish, they slow down. And the
things that the bass are foraging on are moving slowly and they're not as active. So you got to,
you know, mimic the bait fish that's out there and mimic the forage that they're going after,
and so slower moving baits is the key to that. So the top baits that I would pick for this time
of year is like a four-inch finesse worm. Works really well behind a drop shot or a split
shot pulled real slowly through the water column. A football jig works really well,
just slowly crawling on the bottom. It looks like a slow moving lethargic crawdad.
I know a lot of people think crawdads hibernate during the winter. They don't.
They're actually out there moving around,
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