My Opinion of the Best Bass Fishing Lure

I've been fishing for largemouth bass for just about 25 years. In that time I've asked just about every bass fisherman that I had the opportunity to cast with what they thought the best bass fishing lure was. Unfortunately, I never really got a consistent response. In fact, the answers I usually received proved out to be very poor performers once I tried them. Maybe all of those fishermen were holding back their secret (like an old family recipe) or maybe their luck was better than mine. Who knows?

After spending a good decade using night crawlers, hot dogs, and minnows, I finally got up enough guts to use artificial lures. I spent another 5 or so years using every artificial lure I could find that promised to be the best bass fishing lures on the market. Unfortunately, those 5 years were not very productive in reeling in the trophies.

After 15 years of not-so-successful fishing, my cousin had purchased something that he had always laughed at on the store shelf – spinner bait. This crazy looking creature was yellow (actually, as we come to find out, it was chartreuse) and had these metal spoons hanging off it.

One afternoon my cousin and I were sitting out in a rowboat in shallow water looking right at a school of 3 to 6 pound largemouth bass. We threw every lure we could think of at those bass and they would not even think of attacking our lures. My cousin then said, "Okay, if we can't catch them, let's scare the heck out of them!" as he put on that crazy spinner bait and cast it right at them! We were utterly amazed! We actually saw 6 largemouth bass attack that crazy spinner bait – many times just after it hit the water! We went back to the tackle shop and bought as many of those spinner baits as we could and then proceeded to have the most successful fishing season ever!

I've been using spinner baits for about 10 years now, and I can honestly say that they are the absolute best bass fishing lure in my tackle box. In fact, I'd say my tackle box is made up of about 70% spinner baits and 20% spinner bait accessories and 10% other baits.

So, from one bass fisherman to another, if you ask me what the best bass fishing lure is, I'll tell you the spinner bait!