Bass West USA, The First and Final Word in Bass Fishing!

With “new amazing” baits coming out everyday anglers often overlook the proven oldies. Baits that caught fish 2, 5 even 10 years ago should still work. Bass fed on these baits back then for a reason, and those reasons still exist. So dig back into the old tackle box and get yourself re-acquainted with the baits that worked for you in the past.

It wasn’t until recently while I was fishing a team tournament that I came to this conclusion. I was re-introduced to a lure that I had almost forgotton about. It is a lure that we have all used and caught many fish on in the past, but with the recent advent of more realistic Japanese baits I had lost confidence in it. The lure I’m talking about is the age ole’ popper.

It was during a pre-fish for team tournament that I was catching a lot of fish on topwater baits. The buzz bait was catching a lot of fish but as the tournament neared the buzz bait bite died out. I then switched to a Lucky Craft Sammy and started catching fish again. The morning of the tournament started out as planned, my partner Martin Wall and I were catching 1-2 fish per spot with the Sammy. The fish weren’t giants but, they were good tournament fish. I pulled up to our 3rd spot and caught a solid fish. I continued to throw a few more casts into the area with no luck. As I started to motor the boat down the bank Martin decided to throw out a popper from the back of the boat and dead stick it. On the first pop he catches our kicker fish. He proceeded to rail fish left and right on the popper all day.

Following the tournament, I was sitting back at home when I decided to go through my old tackle and dig up some of the forgotten poppers. I have had several trips back to the lake since then and have been catching more fish than ever with the popper. The popper is now back in my arsenal to stay.
Poppers aren’t the only old school baits that still catch fish. A few other baits and techniques you might want to turn your clock back to include split shotting and balsa style crankbaits. Split shotting is often overlooked these days with anglers instead opting to use a drop-shot technique. However, split shotting is a fantastic technique to utilize when the fishing gets tough. Older style crank baits such as the wiggle wart and balsa style baits from Bagley’s are also baits you might want to re-introduce yourself to.

With all the “new amazing” baits being released what seems like every day, it is easy to forget the baits that we first learned to catch fish on. These baits are time proven and we even have a built in confidence level in them. Sure there are lots of new lures that’ll put fish in the boat like chatter baits and ultra realistic swimbaits but, no one ever said you had to throw away all the other baits we’ve caught fish on for so many years. So next time you go fishing pull out some of your old school lures and see what happens, you might be amazed!