Fishing is a wonderful pastime, and the time you spend by (or on) the water, trying to get them to bite, can be some of the most relaxing and rewarding in your life. That being said, you might still want some advice on how to improve your skills.
If you’re looking for a specific kind of fish, there are usually all kinds of tips and pieces of advice that will help you out, and it’s no different with largemouth bass.
In this article, we’ll go over what exactly a largemouth bass is, and then move on to some advice about the equipment and techniques you can use to raise your bass catching game.
What Is A Largemouth Bass?
As you might have guessed, the largemouth bass is a kind of bass, and is actually the largest subspecies of the black bass.
It lives in fresh water and is a very popular game fish (meaning that it’s often pursued for sport or recreational purposes).
Anglers like that these fish put up a great fight and will frequently jump right out of the water in an impressive acrobatic display.
Largemouth bass can be identified by their greenish-gray coloring and also by their huge mouths, which is where they get their name. They can also go by a huge range of other names that are used locally or regionally.
These bass are native to the Central and Eastern United States, Southeastern Canada, and Northern Mexico but have been introduced and now live in many other places as well.
Furthermore, it is Georgia and Mississippi’s state fish and Florida and Alabama’s state freshwater fish.
When Is The Best Time To Catch Largemouth Bass?
Time Of Day
Generally speaking, it’s easier to find largemouth bass early in the morning (sunrise until around 8am) and later in the afternoon or evening (5:30pm until sunset). This is because if the sun is strong, the bass take cover to avoid the light.
Bass have very good eyesight and rely on it to catch their prey, being able to see much better in conditions of low light than most of what they’re hunting.
For this reason, bass like to hunt in these conditions to surprise its prey. Take a leaf out of the bass’s own book and try the same!
Time Of Year
An important thing to understand about largemouth bass is that they are cold-blooded.
This means that their metabolisms work more quickly in warmer water, which means that in warmer water, they expend more energy and so need to eat more, making them easier to catch.
In the warmth of spring and early summer, the largemouth bass will become more active and give you the chance to catch them in shallower water.
When the summer has properly arrived, they’ll tend to move to deeper waters, returning to shallower waters again only when the height of the summer has passed.
They’re less active in the winter, though they can still be caught then.
What Is The Best Bait Or Lure For A Largemouth Bass?
There are two main routes you can go down here: live bait or artificial bait. When it comes to live bait, largemouth bass are carnivorous fish, so the best strategy when choosing bait is to use something that they’d usually eat anyway.
This would include minnows, shiners, and shad. Crawfish and frogs can also be useful for snagging largemouth bass.
However, it is common to use lures when angling for largemouth bass. There are so many different types of lures you can use, but we’ll look at a few of them here.
Spinnerbait: Spinnerbaits have metal blades on them that rotate, similar to a propeller, as they move through the water.
The reason for this is that this motion makes the blades catch the light, which tricks the largemouth bass into thinking the spinnerbait is a baitfish.
These can be used in a wide range of environments and in deep and shallow waters.
Crankbait: crankbait are designed to look like small fish, or sometimes crawfish.
They are designed to dive underwater thanks to a flat lip on the front and stay there, wobbling as they’re pulled back. This movement attracts fish.
These work in just about any kind of weather and a range of water depths.
Jerkbait: jerkbait lie on top of the water and get their name from the fact that movements of the rod cause them to jerk around, copying the movement of a real fish.
This makes them attractive to largemouth bass, among other things. They are particularly good in clear water where bass are already preying and feeding on baitfish.
Rubber worms: rubber worms are very popular for their versatility, being useful for catching many different kinds of fish in all sorts of conditions.
There’s nothing all that complex about them – they work by imitating a real, live worm that the bass might want to eat.
There are various other kinds of lures that you can try, but these are some of the most popular for angling for largemouth bass.
A good practice is to, once you’ve tried a few, to choose your favorite and practice using that one as much as you can.
Bring a few others to use in case your favored one isn’t getting you any bites that day, but otherwise, stick to the plan and put as much energy as you can into your favored approach.
Final Thoughts
Largemouth bass are one of the world’s most popular game fish for a reason, and make a worthy target for any angler, whether a novice or well-seasoned.
They’re aggressive, so they don’t shy away too much from the rod, but put up enough of a fight to make the hunt a challenging and fun one.
Even if you don’t catch anything, the experience of feeling the largemouth bass strain against your rod and seeing it leap out of the water and flail around will make the experience worth it. Good luck, and happy fishing!
