Your coolest new technique this year? 2024
thinkingredneck reply :
As the year is closing, what was the coolest new lure or technique you used this year? By new, I mean new to you. For me it was a jig. Old technique, but new to me.
thebillsman reply :
Last year, it was sub-1/4oz jigs. I forced myself to slow down and improve on finesse presentations and I've come to really like it. This year was topwater. I had a lot of fun with my Stutterstep 4.0 3D, Siglett's and frogs.
I always find myself going back to squarebills and jerkbaits. No matter the conditions or time of year I always find confidence in those two.
Ben Miller reply :
Alabama rig! Thing is awesome! Snapped a rod throwing it, lost a few rigs, but this year it's on! All new heavier gear a bunch of rigs and different baits! Just swimbaits 2nd.
Been a worm thrower and top water most of my life
burrows reply :
I never really threw a fluke around much till this year, I really fell in love with fluke fishing.
IndianaOutdoors reply :
New to me this year was drop shot, baitcasters, whopper plopper, deep cranking, side Imaging, and wading for smallmouth. That being said my big thing this year was the zoom fat Albert grub in green pumpkin. I had used grubs in the past but never considered them to be a productive bait. I'm not sure what exactly started it but I've had a grub tied on most of the year and used it in many applications with success.
Edit:. Also new this year was the Ned rig. I almost forgot it bc it was better at catching crappie than bass for me. While it may be considered a numbers bait for bass, I consider it a slab bait for crappie. Pulled out several 10-12in crappie in a lake where the norm is 5-8in.
IndianaFinesse reply :
For me it was really a big year for expanding my fishing-both in techniques and styles. Got much better at fishing fast and run and gun style of fishing, plus I'm starting to developed more confidence in fishing offshore. Really spent a lot of time with and got fairly good at shallow cranks, buzzbaits, and shaky heads this year. I had used them in the past of course, but they really weren't my confidence techniques, and now they are a few of my favorite and best techniques. It helps that I can spend 240+ days on the water, gives me that much more time to learn than some guys.
Junger reply :
This is my first year back to fishing from a long long, 25 year hiatus. I got some chatterbaits, which looked intimidating when I first got them, but now I love them. But I've gotten snagged on submerged branches/stumps on an open hook style chatterbait. I bought some of the Z-man free swinging chatterbaits and want to give those a try.
Dorado reply :
The Zoom Weightless Texas-rigged Trick Worm (Candy Bug) incorporates a new technique for me this year and it’s been a game changer. 2017 marked the year where I dedicated myself to fishing soft plastics almost exclusively. (Notice I said almost- need my lipless crank, swim jig, or chatterbait fix ever so often)
Had no clue it was going to be responsible for my top night producer as well. Previously, had misconceptions that it wasn’t loud enough or distributive in the dark to get any love.
Positioning myself 10-15 yards from the target on foot, I like landing the worm on the bank’s edge first, then creep it quietly with the rod tip into the water at night. When you hear or see the water swelling, get ready to draw! Experimented with various hooks too and narrowed it down to a 3/0 Gamma G-Lock which is my new favorite hook. Wide enough gap, sharp sticky hook points, and the unique angle in the offset z-shaped position keeps the plastics flushed straight even when pulled thru weeds. And that’s typically when I also get the most aggressive strikes.
Judging by my last fishing experience experimenting with a Rage Tail Menance in Black with Blue Flake, this will be the Robin sidekick to the Batman duel. Just add a 1/4 oz tungsten weight and will use the same exact hook to swipe it out.
Since my headlamp is ALWAYS off when I’m casting at night, it’s impossible to line watch. But at night, the bite is usually more aggressive in the shallower waters because the bass are there for one of two things: pin the schools of Shad against the artificial metro pond walls or stalk the bluegillls near the weed’s edge. Jigs are next year’s endeavor.
Bluebasser86 reply :
I had a lot of fun with the micro bass jigs I started making this year.
Then I picked up a few sweet swimbaits late this year that I'm really looking forward to fishing next year. WSB Rat with a 175 Slide Swimmer for scale.
Custom painted black crappie Phoney Frog shad
A wild colored DRT Joker (bottom isn't mine)
and a Legrady Lures Donut Shad
Will Wetline reply :
After studying the many posts about Ned rigging on BR, it wasn't a surprise that it was extremely effective on my clear water home lake.
Heads are from the Do-it mold and the two baits that got the job done were Z-man's Finesse TRD and Finesse ShadZ.
IgotWood reply :
I spent some time this spring/summer with the good old texas rig. The heavy hitter for me was a pegged 1/2-3/4oz with a Power Team Lures Conviction Craw. I did well pitching it in openings in weed beds, and along timber. Certainly not a new technique, but new to me!
scaleface reply :
New to me this year was the Berkely Dredger . I caught fish on all five sizes and the deepest was at 22 foot. Thats the deepest a lipped crankbait has caught bass for me . Previously my record was about 17 foot .
Hez reply :
Coolest?
How about most fun?
I have 2 techniques tied for 1st place if that's the case.
1. Heavy punching and flipping - The close combat stuff is really fun!!! Gets your adrenaline really going!
2. Chasing schooling fish - just did this for the first time last weekend - spent the day on the trolling motor, watching for bass to start busting on the water - and me and my son would throw some paddle tail swimbaits into the mix and BOOM!!! It was a blast! Busy fishing all day...constant. It was so much fun. Nothing over 2 lbs...but fun.
burrows reply :
On 12/1/2017 at 2:36 PM, Bluebasser86 said:I had a lot of fun with the micro bass jigs I started making this year.
Then I picked up a few sweet swimbaits late this year that I'm really looking forward to fishing next year. WSB Rat with a 175 Slide Swimmer for scale.
Custom painted black crappie Phoney Frog shad
A wild colored DRT Joker (bottom isn't mine)
and a Legrady Lures Donut Shad
That little jig looks cool.
A-Jay reply :
The SK Rage Bug on the Freedom Head was a solid performer for me on smallies.
Early season shallow, mid season deeper and especially this fall, when this bait was all I fished for almost a month !
A-Jay
Darren. reply :
Der Ned'enmeister! Money rig for me this year!
IndianaFinesse reply :
On 12/1/2017 at 2:36 PM, Bluebasser86 said:I had a lot of fun with the micro bass jigs I started making this year.
Then I picked up a few sweet swimbaits late this year that I'm really looking forward to fishing next year. WSB Rat with a 175 Slide Swimmer for scale.
Custom painted black crappie Phoney Frog shad
A wild colored DRT Joker (bottom isn't mine)
and a Legrady Lures Donut Shad
Do you sell those jigs?
Montanaro reply :
Soft jerkbaits on heavy gear in heavy vegetation
fishwizzard reply :
The drop shot was the best "discovery" I made this year. Before I had always written it off as a deep water vertical presentation, but a six-inch purple Roboworm dragged around the shallows was my number one producer this fall.
fishballer06 reply :
The Neko rig. It made my summer fishing much more successful this year.
Steveo-1969 reply :
New bait/technique/presentation for me this year was the good old spinnerbait. I'd never caught a fish on one before, so I bought a couple this spring and caught half a dozen or so river smallies on them this summer/fall. It's not going to replace my small paddletail swimbait anytime soon but it was fun to catch them on something new!
NYWayfarer reply :
On 12/2/2017 at 2:18 AM, fishballer06 said:The Neko rig. It made my summer fishing much more successful this year.
Ditto.
I found the most success with it when I used a Yum Swim'n Dinger.
J Francho reply :
About the only truly different thing I had a lot of success with were the Savage Gear goby tubes. Otherwise, just newer versions of the same things. I threw a whopper plopper, too. Just so I could say I did.
Choporoz reply :
Nothing new, really. But I successfully dedicated time, effort and experience to a couple old 'techniques':
-Getting the kayak into very shallow flats and thick lily pad fields where boats couldn't go. I had great success on a number of outings in places that I would not have spent as much time or effort in past years, getting to and working. Sometimes, it's almost more like hunting....working the yak in...being still...watching pads for even the slightest movement, dropping a lure in, and slamming the hook home on a fish that I didn't see, but knew exactly where she was.
-Worked thick wood with much more thorough attention to detail and meticulousness than I'd ever done in the past. I think that spending more time fishing from a kayak than a boat was partly the cause. Unlike fishing from a boat, I don't/can't fish while moving up and down the shoreline, except as the current and wind allow. So, I find myself spending more time dissecting a spot than I generally do from a boat. By taking my time to really pick apart laydowns and brush piles, I caught fish that I'd have missed in previous years. Pulling four and five good bass off a single laydown is particularly rewarding.
38 Super Fan reply :
I caught a decent number on squarebills this year. Not exactly new to me, but I never had too much luck with them before.
Bass_Fishing_Socal reply :
This year is my second years for serious bass fishing so everything is new and cool to me.
Last year I fish mainly on dropshot and Senko. This year I planed on moving bait which I think I success enough on Fluke, Jerkbait and Chatterbait.
Next year will be lipless, spinnerbait, swimbait and jigs.
WRB reply :
I picked up a Dual Realis 90 Spybait in morning dawn awhile back and never tied it on until recently to give it a try. The shad have been suspended for a several weeks slowly going deeper with each passing week and I had a good bite going on structure spoons in the afternoon and medium size crankbaits like a Zoner Hunter early, the mid day bite was mostly drop shot. I just started casting at grebes following Shad schools with the spy bait and counting it down before slowing reeling it back and did very good. Now during a tough bite Spybaits are my go to fall Shad school lure and caught bass all day using it. The down side is the treble hooks can be a problem when aggressive bass engulf the lure, then it's back to structure spoons.
Tom
Burtonxj reply :
Duo Spinbait 80s. Helped out with my patience too. Toss em out, count it down and crank it slow.
LCG reply :
Neko and Ned rig produced well for me. Even caught a good size catfish on a ned rig which I was really surprised with.
Picked up a baitcaster this fall and started pitching jigs. Lots to learn this winter but I will definitely be keeping the jig on my go to technique list.
Next year I really want to catch using top water poppers and Frogs, I have had zero luck so far.
Way north bass guy reply :
This year for me was the drop shot. Even though I live in central Ontario, the heart of big northern smallie country, I’ve never used them much in years past. This year I made myself throw them a few times and boy was that ever a good decision. And with an 8 year old for a fishing partner, we tag teamed them this fall when they were schooled up and feeding heavily. Best bait for us was a 4” Berkley gulp minnow in smelt colour, that stuff is like crack for smallies!
Russ E reply :
It wasn't a new bait to me, but a new way to use it.
in the past I fished Chatterbaits fairly fast in shallow water. It would catch active fish ,but not many quality fish.
after reading posts here, I slowed way down and fished them deeper along weed edges.
the average size of fish went up dramatically.
The slow rolled Chatterbait has become one of my go to baits.
Bluebasser86 reply :
On 12/1/2017 at 9:58 PM, Burro said:That little jig looks cool.
Thanks, it's an 1/8oz with a 1" trailer. I caught so many fish with it this year, and about every species of fish too. I jokingly started calling it my "Power Ned" because kind of like a Ned rig, it caught tons of fish and all species, just a little heavier and bulkier than a typical Ned rig.
Stalking bass reply :
This year I focused mainly on jigs which paid of big time for me. But I took two months off jigs and learned the dropshot technique and hollow body frog speed walking. The dropshot rig is really productive. It catches not only bass but huge bluegill and huge perch. The hollow body frog was the most work to figure out. Walking it fast resulted in reaction strikes which really paid off in the early morning.
THE_Vue's reply :
Bent minnow caught me tons of 5-8lbs walleyes
BassFisher22 reply :
I started frogging this year and absolutely love it. I started when I found a good pond with heavy pads all around the edges. Booyah poppin padcrasher is the way to go.
MassYak85 reply :
Had some decent success in late summer punching, which I hadn't done much of before. Also picked up an MS Slammer that I am really enjoying.
WolfyBrandon reply :
Not new to me, but I would say the technique I gained a lot more confidence in this year was...
Deep Diving Crankbaits / Crankbaits.
The past few years I've focused mostly on soft baits like Grubs and Tubes. I felt like if I tossed one of those two baits into a spot holding a bass I had a 90% chance I could get the bass to commit to it. Well credit goes to my fishing buddy Jeremy changing it up one day and throwing one of those new Berkley Dredgers. On one of our trips this year the fishing was slow. I was using a variety of baits, but fell back to my confidence baits (soft plastics) to try and make something happen. Jeremy makes a cast with the Dredger and hooks up (We were fishing one of our honey holes). So I make like 10+ casts in the area with a Zoom Mag II worm and nothing... He's all like, "Man I'm telling ya... Cranks!". I had just recently put together my box of Rapala DT's, so I broke out a DT-16 and first cast - the rod loads up! Jeremy makes another cast while I'm working the fish to the boat and hooks up again...
After that day we both kept a crankbait tied on for the rest of the year. We caught a lot more fish with them (both bass and pike) and Jeremy even managed to hook into one of his largest bass this year on it.
WolfyBrandon
Sifuedition reply :
I took an unplanned ~15 year break from fishing. Dad wanted to go for his birthday, so this August I went again and the bug is back as strong as ever. Unfortunately, this year has been odd since then, and nobody I've talked to in Oklahoma has had a lot of luck in late summer/fall.
I don't think anything new has become a confidence lure, yet, but, I'm still excited about Senko's, Chatterbaits, Whopper Plopper's, drop shot, soft-body and hard-body swimbaits and flukes. Still looking forward to trying more shaky-head presentations, too.
When I fished a lot 15-20 years ago, Slug-go's were popular, but I never caught very many on them. Those were very similar to the fluke's. Obviously, soft-body swimbaits were around then, but I never knew anyone who used them in this region because they didn't seem to catch much.
I have a theory that may be odd...
Baits like the Zara Spook were around then, like soft-body swimbaits, but nobody threw them. At least, nobody I knew or saw in this region. Now, it seems like everyone is throwing them. I wonder if fish go through cycles that may be generational, with baits they see too often and the next generation doesn't strike them as well. When the bait stops producing, fishermen stop throwing them. Some generations later, those baits are effective again after being rarely used for some time. Obviously, some will never go "out of style", but it almost seems like what has happened in my hiatus, some baits coming "back into style". Maybe it's just the fishermen, not the fish.
CroakHunter reply :
Not a new technique to me but a new bait that won me some money was the magnum rage bug. I used it to flip deep weedlines next to stick ups.
Columbia Craw reply :
Neko rig. I can think of several scenarios where this technique would have done well last year but I did not put the drop shot down.
JoePhish reply :
This is my second full year of fishing in East Tennessee (mostly out of a yak) since moving here from Florida.
The technique I embraced and succeeded at this year was deep cranking. Caught my biggest Largemouth of the year doing so. I've fine tuned my overall cranking game too.
I threw shakey heads more this year than I have in the past. Won and placed in some tournaments fishing them.
Going forward there's a lot I'd like to work on like Drop Shotting, Ned Rigs, A-rigs and Neko rigs. I'd also like to get back to some jig fishing which was something I excelled at in FL but can't seem to do well with here in TN.
adam lancia reply :
I started flipping and pitching this year and caught my PB 4.06# largie, in a tournament no less. Needless to say, I really enjoyed that and will be doing more of it in the future.
soflabasser reply :
Swimbaits that I made myself.
Quarry Man reply :
Well, I wanted to learn to fish three lures and become confident in them. Only became confident in the spinnerbait, still need to learn the frog and jig. the ned rig came in clutch during the spawn
BassWhole! reply :
On 12/2/2017 at 4:17 AM, J Francho said:I threw a whopper plopper, too. Just so I could say I did.
Yuck!
Not counting using a live goby as a swim jig trailer, nothing new.
Smelter96 reply :
This year i really started pitching and flipping into the heaviest junk i could find. Used to be afraid of loosing those tungstens, but since i started fishing em in the real junk ive caught waaay more. Including my PB
RichF reply :
Well I gave in and tried the Ned and Neko...nothing on the Ned, only small bass on the Neko. They won't be used in 2018.
J Francho reply :
Nothing on the ned? You should have used the 1/15 instead of the 1/16 oz. head.
scaleface reply :
On 1/18/2018 at 11:52 PM, reason said:Yuck!
Not counting using a live goby as a swim jig trailer, nothing new.
Ha ! I rigged up a shad on a Carolina rig and was dragging it along . I caught a fish but it wasnt a bass . A channel cat .
RichF reply :
On 1/19/2018 at 10:23 PM, J Francho said:Nothing on the ned? You should have used the 1/15 instead of the 1/16 oz. head.
To be fair, I didn't give it much of a chance haha. Just not much of a finesse guy.
Subaqua Adinterim reply :
On 1/19/2018 at 10:21 PM, RichF said:nothing on the Ned
I wouldn't give up on this technique. I had great success with it this year. I know fishing 2 rods at once isn't allowed in tournament fishing; but I since I never tournament fish, here is what I do that seems to keep me occupied as I use the ned rig (that is, if I'm not getting much action right away with the ned rig). I toss out the ned rig along the edge of the weedline in deeper water and then fish another bait, e.g., t rigged senko or jig in shallow water, on a separate rod at the same time as the ned rig is settling.
After I reel in the non ned rig bait, I will start to reel up the ned rig and will sometimes have a fish on.
Best of luck in the new year.
Bassin' Brad reply :
Tried a few new things last year but the real kicker was lipless cranks. Had an awesome day fishing one and now I'm a believer....
countryboy65 reply :
Did really well around the spawn with topwater. A six on a spro bronze eye Shad and two more sixes on a black cavitron buzzbait.
N Florida Mike reply :
I caught a good number of fish on spinnerbaits this year . Caught more on them this year than all my other bass fishing years combined. But it was a spring and early summer thing. After May, not ONE fish on them.
I just watched a good Scott Martin video on spinnerbaits that made me eager to implement some of his tips in spring.
Hawghead reply :
NedRig was my bread and butter this year. Smacked the heck out of them on small lakes, Lake of the Ozarks, and Smallmouth streams.
LOTR88 reply :
For me it was top water in the morning and evening, I mostly fish Texas rig worms in my lake because they catch a lot of fish but there is something about those top water strikes :-).
craww reply :
Drop shotting on beds. Spent a good while in a back water river area with fish on beds and Tx rigs, jigs, shakeyheads, couldnt buy a bite, had to get pretty close due to grass and they were real skittish.. I believe theyd JUST locked on as alot of gills and gar where in the area but not active around the beds. Ended up tieing on a drop shot w/a paca craw trailer of all things. Proceeded to catch every fish I targeted that afternoon and a few days later in a another area.
A light bulb went off that day. What better way to keep a bait "on the spot" than a drop shot?
J Francho reply :
On 1/25/2018 at 11:41 AM, craww said:A light bulb went off that day. What better way to keep a bait "on the spot" than a drop shot?
Happened to me, too.
https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/dropshot-bedding-bass.html
Scarborough817 reply :
got into cranking a lot more last season i really want to focus on glide bait and jigs this year. so i'll probably have a few days of just throwing my glidebaits and swimbaits, 2 rods in the boat and a big net think that sounds like a pretty good time on the water. considering im going to take 2 weeks off from work and just be up north where i can fish everyday i will have more than enough time to dial in some techniques
craww reply :
On 1/25/2018 at 9:36 PM, J Francho said:Happened to me, too.
https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/dropshot-bedding-bass.html
Great write up! I hadnt really considered running a longer tag and heavier weight, but its a great idea that I'll explore. Definetly less invasive without the sinker there directly below the bait.
The paticular area mentioned above is a labrynth of shallow river back waters that turn into creeks. Theres small pools everywhere between heavy, thick millfoil.
I could see your set up working well. You could cast past beds with the heavy sinker, and theyd probably practically hook themselves with that hidden in the slop.
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