Summer Time Bass Baits

What's your summer time "go to" bass baits?

I have always trusted a Lucky Craft Sammy and 3" Yum Dingers, sadly they are no longer made in 3".

7 inch berkley power worm red shad, and any type of stick bait wacky rigged.

I have 6 rods ready to go each trip usually with the following: wacky rigged senko, buzzbait, suspending jerkbait (yes I know - usually an early spring/late fall lure but I hammer big fish cruising submerged weed flats all summer with it), mojo rig, dropshot, jig (1/2oz+/-)

I'll play with colors, mix square bills, lipless or other cranks in place of the jerkbait depending on the conditions. If they really are tight to the bottom in deep water I'll switch the mojo for a classic Texas or Carolina rig. I keep the jig matched to the primary forage size, so if I see lots of juvenile bluegill, or if I'm fishing a crayfish lake I'll change up the colors some and downsize.

I fish Southern Illinois. Usually a Texas rigged Brush Hog in pumpkin with a 1/4 oz sliding bullet weight. White or chartruese spinnerbait and buzzbait. Lipless crankbait if varying colors. Squarebill crankbait (4'-6' depth)_in varying colors.

When it comes down to it, a bag of Zoom Speed worms (or similar) in watermelon, Texas rigged and a box of either football head or swim jigs with NetBait Paca Chunk trailer will get me through pretty much anything.

Loooooove throwing topwaters in the summer -- specifically, black buzzbaits. I've found that throwing them in lower light conditions (before dusk, after dawn) have yielded the best results for me, but I won't hesitate to throw one at high noon either (although you'll find that to be quite an unpopular opinion among most other anglers). Haven't used any other buzzbait than the 3/8 oz. black skirt/red blade Cavitron buzzbait for a while now... unmatched in squeak/sound, bubble trail/turbulence, and lift, aka minimum speed needed to maintain its position on the surface and to keep the blades churning.

Would love to throw more reaction-type baits like cranks and spinnerbaits, but unfortunately the bodies of water I fish all get wayyy too weedy during the warmer months. I've always had consistent success with weightless Texas-rigged senkos and flukes however, along with more finesse techniques (straight tailed finesse worm paired with 1/8-1/4 oz. jighead or drop shot rig) when the bite gets tough.

Been experimenting with creature/beaver style baits this summer as well, and I'm liking the preliminary results thus far... 3/8 oz. tungsten bullet weight, glass bead, and a snelled 4/0 Trokar TK130 straight shank Flippin hook rigged up with a Berkley Havoc Pit Boss, Missile Baits D-Bomb, or RI Sweet Beaver 4.20 in that order. The brush hogs/baby brush hogs in my tackle boxes haven't seen water in a while :wink: . I still have a lot of confidence in them to get it done, I think it's just more of a honeymoon phase I'm having with the aforementioned three lures. It's also worth noting that I'm fishing these like a Texas-rig; I've never done much flipping/pitching nor are the ponds/lakes I fish very conducive to such techniques anyways.

** As an addendum: if you like throwing poppers, give the Gary Yamamoto Shibuki Popper a try if you haven't already. I've always been hesitant to try out Yamamoto hard baits, and truth be told, I still really haven't with the exception of the popper. But it is a great topwater and the castability of both the 60 & 80 sizes is superb!

:beer:

4" wacky rig Senko is usually my go to bait when the bite is tough.

^^^ definitely. I either downsize and go to as light a weight as I can manage to cast or get something huge and crawl it real slow on the bottom when things get tough.

crawdaddy crank

gulp crawler on a drop shot rig

rapala #5 floating minnow

willow leaf spinners

beatle spin

Too many to list! Tie on what my gut tells me. All have produced.