Lure Fishing for Bass: 10 Things I Wish I Had Known Years Ago

🎣 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Bass Lure Fishing (Earlier!)

My most successful Big Bass Lure that’s had a Double –
https://todbermanor.co.uk/spinners-hard-baits/13589-megabass-zonk-120.html?aff=5O

ver the years, I’ve made plenty of mistakes when lure fishing for bass and some of them cost me fish. In this video, I’m sharing 10 key tips I wish I knew sooner. These are hard-learned lessons, backed up by over 35 years of catch reports.

✅ Whether you’re new to bass lure fishing or have been at it for years, these are things that could seriously improve your catch rate.

📘 Start logging your wins (and blanks!) with your own Catch Report Logbook:
👉 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C6C626SD

📬 Join my Bass email list:
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🎣 My Tackle List – What I Actually Use:
👉 https://www.saltwaterangler.co.uk/post/sea-fishing-tackle-i-use

🔥 Lures Mentioned in This Video:
• Westin Sandy Fixed: https://tinyurl.com/3ar24ytp
• Megabass Zonk 120SW – My Favourite Lure: https://www.veals.co.uk/product/megabass-zonk-120sw/?aff=20

👉 I’m not sponsored by any lure or tackle company — these are real opinions from a lifetime of fishing.

💬 Let me know in the comments: What do YOU wish you’d known earlier about sea fishing?

Thanks for watching — I read every comment, and I’ll reply where I can. I definitely don’t know it all… and this video proves it! But i hope there is something n here that ups your catch rate.

– Matt Lingard

Well, I’ve been fishing for these bass for over 35 years, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and there’s a lot of things I really wish I’d have done and known uh when I first started, and right the way up to a few years ago. 10 things on the list, uh, which hopefully we can all benefit from. So, I want to start off with more structured casting. Uh, when I first started doing Nerf fishing, I would just cast to a rock or a boulder. Uh, maybe walk along the beach a bit and cast out again. Um, but in recent years I’ve really learned the benefit of having a more methodical approach to this. So, you can see here that’s me coming up um and just sort of casting as if a clock face uh out to the far right and then coming of sort of 5° or an o. So, from 3:00 to 2:00 and then 1:00 casting straight out would be say midday. Uh, and just really working the lure in a pattern gives you a much more structured approach to your fishing. Um, I just wish I’d have done this earlier really because I’d have been missing out on those little opportunities to find fish. There may be small shells of sort of three or four fish around one of these boulders. Um, but you wouldn’t really find them if you’re using a haphazard technique. So yeah, this is one of I mean there’s so many of things that I could have got right over the years that I didn’t. Uh and this is certainly uh one of them and I hopefully the next nine you’ll benefit from as well. You can see here, you know, this is with one particular lure, say a surface lure, and then uh if you don’t know where or how the bass are feeding, drop that down to uh sort of a shallow diver and then maybe even a shad bouncing it lower down. uh until you find the feeding fish. And then once you’ve done this, then it’s time to move on. But yeah, I certainly didn’t do that in the past. To illustrate this next point, what we’re looking at here is of course that crazy mackerel uh time of the year where everyone packs in shoulder to shoulder, casts out strings of 12 feathers. Ordinarily, you know, if you’re after bass, you want to avoid things like this. It is, of course, a good indication that bass might be around. So, something I’ve learned here is not to get carried away with what everyone else is doing, but actually to look at how well oxygenated the water is. Um, there’s obviously a good supply of bait fish here. They’re they’re all fishing here for the mackerel. We have got a harbor arm here which will disorientate some of the bait fish. Um, but the sort of energy I’m looking for in the water is where it’s really well oxygenated. So, wave action will do that. uh big spring tides will do that as they move across shallower areas of water. Um and it’s something that you know it’s took me a long time to understand just how important it is that bass have oxygenated water. And a lot of that is down to catch reports. I fill in these catch reports and I have done for decades now. And one of the points in there is is sort of how oxygenated the water is. What is that water condition? Because now there is a caveat coming up. You really want high energy in the water. It encourages the bass to feed. I’ve done a bit of spear fishing and you really notice the difference when the tide picks up in how the bass are behaving. I’ve gone out at slack water and I’ve dived under peers and they’re just literally asleep the bass under the pier. But as soon as the tide moves and as soon as there’s some energy and movement then the bass will be on the feed again. Uh, and as we’ve talked about before, sometimes it’ll be too clear. That’s a good fish. But you should, as a bass angler, just get really excited and and really confident when you see the airrated water. And I’ve got some really good examples of what that looks like here. And actually, the biggest fish I’ve caught, and this particularly applies to bigger fish have all been during times where the energies in that water. So, yeah, if I’d have known that earlier on, I would have I wouldn’t have wasted a lot of time fishing poor conditions and sort of waited for the tides to pick up. Absolutely love high energy water situations, lure fishing for bass. But I honestly think with this range of tail walk rods, particularly the Crimson that we’ve been using, um, you’ll catch more fish because you’re going to be casting for longer. Uh, the balance and the lightness on these things is is fantastic. And, okay, you might be spending another 150 quid to some of the more entry level rods, but I think they’re worth every penny. Not only will you be casting further, but you’ll enjoy the finesse side of the lure fishing as well because you can put on smaller lures uh and really feel them, really work them exactly how you want because of these fast action tips. So, this one, so on the Crimson here, you’ve got an M and an F. The M is to do with the power. So, it’s like a medium powered rod, but the F stands for fast action, and it is a genuine fast action. A lot of these rod companies will say it’s a 35 g rod with a fast action, but they actually feel and fish nothing like uh a better rod from a brand like tail tail walk. So, but something like this Crimson will fish that 5 g lure with a lot more um finesse. You’ll feel it. But basically, I’d encourage you to um consider spending a little bit more on the rod. So, particularly when it comes to the lightness of the rod, how it feels in your hand and that fast action that recovers quickly. Um you’ll find yourself using a wider variety of lures. uh and the confidence when you hook a big fish on a decent rod as well, uh you’ll have no problems bringing in those bass. Okay, so I’ve put the um drone footage back up that we were looking at earlier. Um and I want to set you a little bit of a challenge now. Have a look at the conditions we’ve got here. Um, and this is one of the first things I happened upon um, by accident. It took me a while to realize what was going on. I wasn’t catching bass and then all of a sudden uh, the the bass started taking surface lures. Um, on one occasion I wasn’t even retrieving the surface lure. Um, and you can just about see uh the equivalent of where I’d have put the the lure on this video. You think you know what it is? I’ve got to remind myself of this sometimes, but it’s the shade. You see there’s a shaded area. We’re fishing um near some cliffs, and the cliffs obviously have the sun going down behind them, and really often, uh bass will use that shadow area to pick off bait fish. And it is a it’s a great area to consider putting your lures and you know even retrieving along the line of that shadow going in and out the shadow and that’ll obviously increase as the sun goes down that that thing will sort of shoot out as it gets dark. So, um yeah, just a little uh little something that I sort of learned about a year into bass fishing and um there would have been occasions where I could have caught fish utilizing that. So, I just thought I’d put it in there a little bit of fun. Um doesn’t always work, but yeah, definitely that cliff edge where it costs a shadow um might help. Have you ever had that? Have you ever caught fish under there? Um, and it works for pollock as well. I do well for pollock on the lures um, back when I used to fish for pollock. Everyone’s got their own favorite color of lures. But one thing I missed out on uh, during my early sort of fishing years for bass. And actually, it was only about sort of four years ago that I realized cotton candy isn’t just a color to attract us anglers to buy things, although I probably would have done. Um, it’s really, really effective. I’ve had a lot of good fish, a lot of smaller fish on cotton candy colored lures. Um, you can see what I mean by cotton candy. Specifically, this flash boost one has done well. Um, but have a look at any lure that you you buy. I’d suggest get maybe your favorite in a cotton candy color. Uh, for some reason there’s just something about it uh that it will outfish other colors as well. Um, but initially I just thought it was there to trick us and we can spend more money. And actually it really does have a good effect and see with some of these catches. We featured this one as well in the channel before. I’ll leave some links for these underneath uh to all the tackle I use. Uh, but I don’t know. I think there’s definitely something either in the cotton candy or in the luminous side to the lures uh which really helps us up the catch rate. So back in the day, you know, we’d have had little stripes of luminous patches on our lures. Things like the J11s, J13s, those were paralas I did most of my early fishing with. But it’s only, well, really recently I’ve realized the benefit of making sure I’ve got something luminous on there, particularly at night and during cloudier conditions. Um, often people will ask, “Can I lure fish in the Bristol Channel?” I don’t know the answer to that, but if I was, I would want something luminous. Um, you can light them up by sunlight or use UV torches as well. So, a little reminder in there for myself more than anything else, just consider putting one of those luminous lures on. [Music] Right. So, next up on the tip then is be prepared. Um, it sounds a little bit of a cliched thing, but it’s really important because I will get uh a phone call or something on a WhatsApp group saying, “Matt, the bass are being caught.” Uh, and you need to sort of almost drop everything and at a moment’s notice, have your bag uh have your rod in the car and be ready to go. This tail walk rod, another excellent rod, this one. um like a five piece rod and you can sort of tuck that away. You can have that on a bike. You can run along with it. Uh it’s a lovely five piece rod that one. We have shown that on the channel before. Um and that is ready to go along with all my stuff. So, when I was narrowing down the stuff, you know, this is I was trying to think of what really moves the needle and and actually having your bag, you know, ready to go with your rods on it. Um, we got on a couple of lure boxes with a selection of lures. Uh, cuz you never know what kite might be feeding. Um, or you might see like a load of seagulls chasing the bait and you think there’s bass there. You have to be ready to go with absolutely everything in the bag and your rod set up um to start fishing. And that’s got to have everything in it. There’s no good. And on days gone past, you know, I wouldn’t have that ready to go. But literally in there is everything I need. I’ve got the spare fluorocarbon, spare braid, there’s a reel in there, um all the little bits you’re going to need. So, these multi sort of tool pliers, guess what? From Tailwalk. Um, super expensive, but there you go. Um, you know, you can cut your line on that. You can crimp things with it. You’ve got you can change your hooks there. So, it might seem a little bit formulaic to have a lure plan or which lures you’re going to use in a row. And obviously fishing is quite organic and you’re going to make decisions as you go, but um I’ve missed out on fish by not having a sort of a sound idea of what to try and when. So I really recommend starting your session off with uh one of two things. Either the lure that you’ve caught your last fish on from that venue or a successful lure elsewhere, something that you got confidence in where you know if the bass are there and feeding, they’re going to take it. Uh, and then the other alternative is to start off with a searching surface lure because if the bass are hitting off the surface, um, and they’re in good numbers, that’s a terrific way to start off the session. You can also utilize your surface lure. So, start with one of those two. Um, but don’t give it too much time. If you’re not getting fish off the surface and you’re not getting fish off your favored lure, then it’s time to work through the clock method that we said and then move on from your um surface lure to maybe a shallow diver and then onto your shads on the bottom perhaps. Obviously, it’s going to depend what time of year as to what’s successful, what the bass are feeding on. So, this is more a technique of uh just understanding that you’re trying to find out what the bass are after and it’s a more regimented uh way of doing that. Very often, I’ve gone into sessions and just wanted to try a particular lure cuz I’ve just bought it and things like that, but I genuinely think you’ll have an advantage of just being a little bit but I genuinely think I’ve had an advantage by realizing that to be more methodical, you can almost tick off uh the types of lures you use. Uh, the only thing that I would throw into the mix here is that conditions can change drastically, particularly when it goes from a a slack tide, so say slack high tide to the first of the EB or just before 2 hours before high tide, um, things can really pick up. So, you should really ask yourself the question, uh, are conditions about to change? And if so, you know, you may be better off just sticking with the same lure because the conditions will change. Um, so just have a little eye out for that maybe would be the the tip here. I’m going to make this point really quite clear literally because it is clear lures uh that I’ve missed out on over the years. I’ve never really used them. I have had so many blanks when the water is what we call gin clear. So, super clear conditions. I’ve sort of moaned and thought, “No, I haven’t really caught much. Haven’t caught much.” Uh, but I think the answer to that is to give clear lures a go. I’ve had a couple of sessions where I’ve used almost clear lures in clear conditions. Uh, and the bass have had a go at them. I don’t think they uh are particularly obliging during clear conditions, and I mean like really bright days, you know, um, and the water clarity is clear. definitely over the last five or six years is give those clear lures a go when the conditions are also clear. Um there’s lots of good examples of them. Um but yeah, just see if your favorite lure comes in an almost clear version. And that also applies to surface lures as well as it does uh to your divers as well. So yeah, clear lures. That’s my next point. It’s a good one that I must Well, when I first started fishing for bass, I always remember a John Darling article um about bass would be chasing small mullet and mackerel. Uh and that sort of formed the basis of of what we had around these Sussex cliffs in terms of replicating them with lures. So, I’d have a blue lure that was like a mackerel um or a silver one that I thought would look like a small mullet that these bass chased. Um, and as a starting point, that’s quite good. But what I’ve come to realize over time and and again only like couple of years ago, um, we’ve actually started seeing more things like sand deals. Bass love a sand deal. And and what I think what I’m trying to say is it’s now worth looking at sandill type lures for bass in Sussex. Now, the same might apply at other areas down along the coast. Depending where you are in the UK, there might be a traditional fish that that the bass had always chased, but actually um I’m not going to call it global warming. A change a change in global temperatures perhaps um seasonal changes and then you know changes over 10, 20, 30 years. Um I think I was a little bit stuck in my way over what sort of bait fish the bass took. So, this tip um is something I’ve learned recently because I’ve been putting on these sandy Andes uh to look a little bit like sand deals. Uh we’ve been catching sand deals as well. We’ve been seeing sand deals out in the boats. So, it’s obviously something very new to the area. Uh and I just, you know, if I’d have known that over the years, there would have been these little changes that I should have been more aware of. So 3 or 4 years ago, I was telling people, “Oh, don’t use a sand deal lure in Sussex cuz we don’t have them.” Well, we do have them, and I’ve learned the hard way. Um, but we have had some good sessions at catching on those sort of sandal lures. Bass very often. So, the next point uh is about marks. And one of the most common things people are ask is where do I catch bass? And it it sort of defeats the whole object of what bass are about. and 95% of the time uh it’s not the mark, it’s the actual conditions that that bring them to that mark. So, for example, um you know, I’ve caught good bass at a particular mark, but only under very particular tides, very particular times of day. Everything has to be exactly right. So, this is probably the most relevant tip on here in a in a broader sense about fishing is that although bass are a very habitual fish, meaning they have the same sort of patterns and the same runs through reefs, uh, and if I can think of something over the last 35 odd years, it’s the conditions that are most important thing, not the actual mark. So, different marks will produce in different conditions. I could tell you some really good bass marks that I’ve done well in in the past and you could go down there five or six times and not catch. I’ll be shoulderto-shoulder with you and I wouldn’t be catching. It’s to do with having the right setup of conditions, what the previous weather’s like. Write everything down so you can start to see these patterns and the patterns will develop because of weather, previous conditions, the barometrics as well. still don’t quite understand what affects the fishing, but it certainly does. The water clarity uh and what other food is available for fish because if for example there’s a peeler crab malt or later in the summer there’s or later in the summer there’s spider crabs molting, those bass on a really good bass mark are not going to care about your lures because they are gobbling up masses and masses of spider crab m. It is, of course, lifelong learning. Um, I could be fishing for bass for a hundred years and I’d still only be touching the surface of of how to actually catch them. Um, but I’m hoping in this list there is at least something here that will improve your catch rate. And as I say, I’d love to know what your one tip would be if you could add one here for everyone else to listen out for as well. Okay, after I’ve finished the session, wash down the gear. I do like to update my fishing catch report book. It’s a great way to look back at previous years and you do start to see patterns. For example, never seem to do well in northeasterly like we’ve had a lot of recently. You can now bow your own version to fill in on Amazon. I’ll leave the link underneath. You want to get into lure angling for bass? I’ve got a video there that might help you out. And then the video on the right is where managed to land a slightly bigger bass than we did today. But I’d love to know what you wish you’d have known when you started fishing, whether that was, you know, 6 months ago or 6 years ago or even 50 years ago. What one thing could you tell yourself uh back then that you wish you now? What do you wish you’d have known back then that could have enabled you to catch more fish? Three times, hit it and then it went off. Passed to the same spot and it’s exactly where it was. Beautiful. Lovely lovely back.