The best lures for largemouth bass are the ones that go into cover or run along its edge, because that is where largemouth live: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes their home as vegetated lakes, ponds, swamps and backwaters, and every good largemouth lure is a way of fishing a weed bed, a laydown or a dock. Seven types cover nearly every situation, and the table below matches each to the cover, depth, temperature and water color it was made for. The picks come from the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series tackle lists, where six of the final ten at Lake Tenkiller fished a Texas-rigged soft plastic, and from the Wired2Fish and Bassmaster gear round-ups; this site has not tested any of them.
Largemouth do not live in open water. They live in cover, and the best lure for them is whichever one fishes the cover in front of you.
How we chose
Two tests. First, results: which lure types won and placed at the nine 2025 Elite Series events, as reported by Bassmaster from the anglers’ own tackle lists, the only public, dated record of what caught bass on a given water in a given week. Second, coverage: a short list has to fish every largemouth situation, from a matted grass bed in August to a 40 ft ledge in January, or it is not a list of the best lures but a list of favorites. Seven types passed both. Specific models in the product box are the ones the tackle lists and the round-ups name; any well-made lure of the same type does the same job.
The seven, by situation
| Lure | Where it wins | Depth | Water temperature | Water color | Retrieve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas-rigged soft plastic (worm, creature, craw) | Any cover: grass, wood, docks, rock | 1–25 ft (0.3–8 m) | 50–90 °F (10–32 °C) | All; green pumpkin clear, black-blue stained | Lift, drop, pause on the bottom |
| Jig with craw trailer | Wood, rock, docks; big fish | 2–40 ft (0.6–12 m) | 40–90 °F (4–32 °C), the coldest-water lure here | All | Drag, hop, swim; pitch to targets |
| Spinnerbait | Wind-blown banks, stained water, laydowns | 1–10 ft (0.3–3 m) | 50–75 °F (10–24 °C) | Stained to muddy; white and chartreuse | Slow-roll cold, steady warm |
| Chatterbait (bladed jig) | Emerging and submerged grass | 1–8 ft (0.3–2.4 m) | 50–75 °F | Stained; green pumpkin in clear | Steady, rip free of grass |
| Hollow-body frog | Matted grass, pads, slop | Surface over any depth | 65–90 °F (18–32 °C) | All | Walk, pause in the holes |
| Squarebill crankbait | Shallow wood, rock, riprap | 2–5 ft (0.6–1.5 m) | 48–80 °F (9–27 °C) | Stained; craw colors spring, shad fall | Steady, bang it off the cover |
| Weightless stick bait (Senko), wacky or Texas | Beds, docks, grass edges, pressured fish | 1–8 ft | 55–85 °F (13–29 °C) | Clear to stained | Cast, let it fall, twitch, let it fall |
The temperature bands follow Kevin VanDam’s six-season model in Bassmaster: moving baits when bass are chasing in pre-spawn and fall, bottom baits and jigs in the cold, topwater in the warm. The best bass lures page carries his full season table and the 2025 event-by-event winning lures; this page is the largemouth-only short list.
The picks in detail
Texas-rigged soft plastic
The rig is the bullet weight, the worm hook and the plastic with the point buried, and it is the most used bass rig in the country because it goes anywhere. A 7 in ribbon-tail worm on a 4/0 hook and a 1/4 oz weight is the standard; a creature bait or craw with a 3/8 oz weight for flipping wood and grass; a 1 oz tungsten to punch through mats. The Texas rig page has the weight table by depth and cover. Who should throw it: everyone, from the first cast. Who should not: nobody.
Jig
A jig and a craw trailer imitate a crayfish, and Texas Parks and Wildlife puts crayfish alongside fish as the adult largemouth’s main food. It is the lure that catches the biggest fish in cold water, and the one that takes longest to learn, because the bite is a tick or a weight and the hookset has to be fast. Football heads for rock, compact flipping jigs for wood and grass, swim jigs for grass in spring. Wired2Fish’s 2026 round-up names the Strike King Tour Grade and V&M Pacemaker for football, the Z-Man CrossEyeZ and Berkley Flippin’ for cover. The bass jigs page goes through the types.
Spinnerbait
A wire arm, blades and a skirted hook; the blades thump (Colorado) or flash (willow), and the whole lure comes through laydowns because the arm shields the hook. Wired2Fish’s guide gives the rule: Colorado blades for dirty, cold water and slow retrieves, willow blades for clear water and speed, the tandem for everything else. A 3/8 oz white or chartreuse-white with a Colorado-willow tandem fishes ninety percent of largemouth water. The spinnerbaits page covers blades and retrieves; the spinnerbait for bass page the seasons.
Chatterbait
Ron Davis of South Carolina put a hex blade straight onto a jig head in 2004; Bryan Thrift’s 2006 win on Okeechobee made it famous, and Z-Man now makes seventeen models of it. It vibrates like a spinnerbait and swims like a jig, and its trick is grass: it runs over the top, catches a stalk, and rips free with a change of direction that draws the bite. The 1/2 oz JackHammer with a Zoom Shimmer Shad trailer was on Wes Logan’s winning list at Tenkiller in June 2025. The chatterbaits page covers trailers and retrieves.
Hollow-body frog
The only lure on the list that fishes water no other lure can: matted hydrilla, lily pads, duckweed and wood over water in the summer. Two upturned hooks ride against the soft body so it walks over the mat weedless, and the strike is a hole opening in the grass. Braid, 50–65 lb, no leader, and a heavy rod; wait until you feel the fish before you set. The topwater page has the frog-and-popper choice by cover.
Squarebill crankbait
A crankbait with a square lip that deflects off wood and rock in 2–5 ft rather than snagging; the collision is the trigger, and the wobble draws bass that will not chase. Spring on riprap and laydowns in craw colors, fall on shallow wood in shad colors; a moderate rod and 12–15 lb fluorocarbon keep the trebles in. The crankbaits page sorts the depth classes.
Weightless stick bait
Gary Yamamoto’s Senko, a salt-loaded, thick plastic stick that falls level with a shimmy on no weight at all, is the lure that made finesse fishing for largemouth easy. Rigged wacky through the middle it is the bed and dock bait; Texas-rigged weightless it fishes grass edges; on a 1/8 oz weight it is a fast Texas rig. The bite is almost always on the fall, so watch the line. The Senko page has the rigs.
What to throw right now
Take the water temperature and the cover and read down the table. Below 50 °F (10 °C): a jig or a Texas rig on the deep edge of the cover, slowly. From 50 to 60 °F: a spinnerbait or chatterbait along the grass and wood on the flats, a squarebill on riprap, a jig for the big females staging on the first drop. Spawn, 60–68 °F: the wacky Senko on beds and docks, the Texas-rigged creature bait to every piece of shallow cover. Summer above 70 °F: a frog over mats and a big Texas-rigged worm on the deep grass edge, a squarebill at dawn. Fall: the spinnerbait and squarebill again as bass follow shad into the creeks. The how to catch bass page sets up the rods and lines for each, and the bass hub holds the species pages.