Best Baits to Target Bluegill Eaters

We focus a lot on trout and shad imitators out West but we all know that bass love to eat bluegill. When the water begins to warm the bluegill becomes a major forage base for bass and you shouldn't overlook them. This week Matt breaks down his Top 5 Baits to best imitate a bluegill so you can begin to catch those big summer bass. 

The key to successfully imitating bluegill is to find baits that not only get bites but are also slim enough to have a high hookup ratio. There's nothing worse than getting giant bites and not hooking the bass! Below you'll find a breakdown of Matt's favorite bluegill imitating baits and the reasons he chooses them. 

The first category is the Squarebill crankbait. Bluegill eaters spend most of their time shallow and around heavy cover so the squarebill is a great option to coax a bite. Matt's favorite all around bluegill imitating squarebill is the River2Sea biggie. You might remember our squarebill debate from THIS VIDEO. 

The second category is the swim jig. When imitating a bluegill I love to use a keitech fat swing impact as a trailer on my California Swim Jig. This combination creates a wide thumping action that imitates a bluegill's tail really well. Quick tip: a chartreuse/blue keitech paired with a very natural looking jig adds a little chartreuse flash and really looks nice in the water! ...see picture below.

The third category is the soft swimbait. The two most widely available baits that best fit this category are the Mattlures Bluegill and the All American Sunfish. Both baits have a very natural profile and are great around cover. Quick Tip: The All American Sunfish needs to be rigged on a swimbait hook of some kind. My preferred hook for this bait is the 5/0 trokar. 

The fourth category is topwater. My favorite large bluegill topwater is the MS Slammer. Its not perfect, but its good enough to get those monster bites and that's what counts! Another great option is the Jackall Gantarel. If smaller baits are your preference, you can't beat the popper. Personally, I'd throw the yellow magic though there are many other great options out on the market. 

The fifth and final category is the Senko. I hate to say it but the senko works incredibly well on bluegill eaters! They're ambush predators and the slow fall of the senko , especially when wacky rigged, really lures them out. Color comes down to personal preference but something with a bit of a chartreuse tail should get the job done. 

I hope you find these tips helpful! As always, we love hearing from you so feel free to leave a comment with your own experiences or even a topic idea for a video you'd like to see us do. Thank you for your continued support of tacticalbassin!

Swim Jig Modifications

As a follow up to our recent post Swim Jig Season, we decided to revisit how to modify a swim jig. While many jigs are effective right out of the package there are some simple changes you can make to the skirt and weedguard that will immediately increase your success rate.

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Some swim jig/swimbait combinations (The California Swim Jig coupled with a Roboworm EZ Shad for example) have excellent action out of the package but other need the skirt to be thinned or shortened to gain the proper action. Follow the simple steps outlined in this video to get increased action out of any swim jig, especially when combining it with a swimbait trailer that has either wide action or low vibration.

The post spawn is the perfect time to lure bass out of the grass beds with the swim jig so put these tips to work right away and catch some of your biggest bass of the year!

9 Lb Bass Crushes the Swim Jig

For those of you that read the California swim jig post, ran to tackle warehouse and completely wiped out their stock of 3/4 oz California swim jigs, this isn’t for you. But for everyone who ran there and found the baits were already sold out, I thought you might like to see a video that was sent to me yesterday afternoon.
Personally, I catch the majority of my fish on the 3/4 oz but the 1/2 oz has a time and place as well. Nationally, a lot of guys are using it with great success.
As I’ve said many times before, I don’t want all the videos on this site to be about me. I love when other anglers film great content. The timing was perfect when Dave from Florida sent me this video. He was wearing a head cam when a 9 lb bass completely inhaled his 1/2 oz Dirty Jigs swim jig. Its going to be an eye opening video for a lot of people. Not only do the baits work, they draw incredibly aggressive strikes, often from extremely pressured fish.
The good news is, at the time of this posting there are still a few 1/2 oz jigs available at tacklewarehouse. Here is the link: 1/2 oz California Swim Jigs

To all of Tacticalbassin’s readership, if you get a great catch on camera (on any bait) feel free to contact me via the “contact Us” link at the top of the page. If it seems like a good fit I’ll put it on the site. Tacticalbassin isn’t about me, its about the fisherman who come here to learn. I am all for user-generated content as I believe keeps the site relevant to cutting-edge trends around the country. I look forward to what you can come up with in the future.
Dave, thank you again for this submission. Great video, great fish, and perfect release.

Swim Jigs in Action

To follow up on our earlier post on swim jigs, here’s some on the water footage of swim jigs in action. We were fishing swim jigs along weedlines in clear water, about 6 ft deep, and the bite was on!