Aaron124 Loc: Arlington Ohio

I have been fishing most of my life. Here recently with in the last few years I have been doing it a lot more. Especially for Bass, But I never learned about different types of baits or if live bait is better than Jigs and Lures. Any advice or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Also would love to know different types of jigs, cranks and lures people use.

Bdubya06 Loc: Salem OR

Live bait is always better than lures if it's legal to use. We used to use shiners for bass in CA. Live gold fish work great but I think they are illegal.

kpt Loc: texas

Not in Texas they aren't. You can use goldfish, they even sell em in bait shops. We use mostly live minnows because that's what they feed on the most. You can also use worms or nightcrawlers as some people call them.

TexDanm Loc: East Texas

I catch more on artificials, mostly soft plastic, rattle traps and spinnerbaits. The thing is with bait you only catch the fish that are actively feeding. With artificials, you get the reaction strikes from fish that may not be in feeding mode. I also have caught a lot of bass by just aggravating them to death. I caught an 8 pounder on the 15th cast with a buzz bait over a log laydown. I think it just came out from under that log to kill that noisy sucker! that log was about the only piece of cover on that side of this small lake. I just knew something had to be there and just kept buzzing until it hit. I suspect that I could have floated a minnow there for a long time and not got a bite. I had first tried it with a plastic worm with no results.

In the early morning and late evening, I go topwater and at that time I am targeting feeding bass and think that making noise will attract them. If you want to use live bait during those hours you might give a saltwater popping cork a try with a big shine swimming under it.