Best Bass Lures For 2026

My bass tackle boxes run the gamut—from soft plastics for finesse fishing to flashy, rattle-y, and loud lures that entice slobberknocker strikes from aggressive largemouth, smallmouth, spots, stripers, and white bass.

I’ve tried a ton of bass lures to figure out which ones catch fish in the farm ponds, rivers, clear lakes, and muddy reservoirs that have been my home waters across the U.S. If you’re gearing up for bass fishing this year, these are the best I’ve thrown in 40+ years of angling.

Best Bass Lures: Top Picks

• Best spinner bait: Booyah Blade
• Best Ned lure: Z-man Finesse TRD
• Best small worm: Charlie Brewer’s Slider Worm
• Best soft plastic stick bait: Yamamoto Senko
• Best soft jerk bait: Zoom Fluke
• Best soft swim bait: Keitech Fat Swing Impact
• Best Bass Topwater: River2Sea Whopper Plopper
• Best walk-the-dog lure: Heddon Spook
• Best deep diving crankbait: Strike King 5XD
• Best lipless crankbait: Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap

Best Spinner Bait for Bass

Booyah Bait Co. Blade

MSRP: $7.99

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON BOOYAH

Why I love it

The spinner bait is the quintessential bass lure, and the Booyah Blade is the best spinner in my box.

I’ll choose Booyah’s Colorado blade to slow-roll in spring for pre-spawn bass and the double-willow blade to cover warm water for active largemouth. The double willow blades also mimic shad, which are prime bass forage in many bodies of water, and don’t put up as much resistance as the Colorado blades. This means you can burn a Booyah Blade just under the surface, making rapid-fire casts to comb the shoreline as you float downstream.

I pick the Booyah Blade when I’m fishing shad-infested waters and hell-bent on making as many casts as possible to active bass holding to the bank.

Bottom Line

If you want to fish shallow water quickly for active bass, the Booyah Blade Double Willow spinner bait is built for burning just under the surface and for cast-after-cast fishing from a kayak.

Best Ned Lure

Z-man Finesse TRD

MSRP: $5.49

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON Z-MAN

Why I love it

Ned rigging is a go-to finesse system for bass, and the Z-Man Finesse TRD is the best Ned lure I’ve fished. Ned rigging is a finesse bass presentation where you cast a short, turd-shaped stick worm on a light, mushroom-style jig and let it fall naturally with a little slack in your line. Pair this funny-looking lure with this subtle-yet-deadly presentation to target spooky bass in the shallows or pressured fish around deeper structure.

The Z-Man Finesse TRD (“turd”) excels at Ned-rigging because its ElaZtech plastic is highly buoyant. This slows its sink rate—generating more hits on the fall—and also lets the lure stand up on the bottom, which resembles a minnow or crayfish. Plus, that plastic is extra durable, potentially holding up to dozens of bass.

I mostly fish the Z-Man Finesse TRD for smallmouth, but it can also catch pressured largemouth in clear water lakes. You may catch the occasional pig with this turd, but it’s more of a numbers lure.

Bottom Line

If you’re fishing a Ned rig, the Z-Man Finesse TRD is a great numbers lure to finesse more bass bites, especially from smallmouth.

Best Small Worm

Charlie Brewer’s (4″) Slider Worm

MSRP: $3.52

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS CHARLIE BREWER’S

Why I love it

I caught my personal best smallmouth on a 4″ Slider Worm twenty years ago and have continued to catch big bass—and high numbers of bass—with this finesse system.

I fish Slider worms similar to Ned rigs. Use medium-distance casts—ideally to the edges of weed beds—and let them sink slowly with a little slack in your line. Largemouth and smallmouth will hit this “do nothing” presentation on the fall. When you feel light taps or the subtle weight of a fish swimming off with your worm, reel in the slack and set the hook with an easy sweep of your rod (not a jerk).

When I’m bass fishing from my kayak, I’ll almost always have a Slider Worm rigged on a medium-light spinning rod—whether I’m casting weeds on a lake or slack water pockets in a river. I prefer 4-inch slider worms (Pumpkin Glitter/Chart Trail and June Bug/Chart Tail) on 1/8-ounce Slider heads. A finesse system for lighter spinning tackle, the Charlie Brewer Slider Worm works best when bass are chill.

Bottom Line

If bass are holding off the edges of weed beds or in pockets of slack water, let a Slider Worm sink slowly—and get ready to set the hook.

Best Soft Plastic Stick Bait

Yamamoto Senko

MSRP: $7.99

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON YAMAMOTO

Why I love it

Senkos work with almost all of the best bass rigs. You can fish them weightless, wacky-rigged, Carolina-rigged, or Texas-rigged. The Yamamoto Senko is the iconic soft-plastic stick bait for largemouth and smallmouth bass.

The beauty of this bass lure is its simplicity. If you let the Yamamoto Senko sink with slack line, it flutters irresistibly without anglers needing to work it. You can fish it slowly with pregnant pauses and subtle twitches—or fish it faster with more of a “walk the dog” retrieve while casting shoreline as your kayak drifts downstream. I’ve caught bass from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania using both techniques on Senkos.

This iconic soft plastic worked for me way back in high school, and has continued to catch bass decades later in each of the states I’ve fished for smallmouth and largemouth bass.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a versatile bass lure to play the part of a dying baitfish, the Yamamoto Senko is the best actor or actress in your tackle box.

Best Soft Jerk Bait

Zoom Fluke

MSRP: $3.49

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON DICK’S

Why I love it

Just when you think you’ve found the most productive soft-plastic, the Zoom Fluke says, “hold my beer.” It’s another legend when it comes to acting like a dying baitfish.

I mostly fish these 4-inch plastic minnows on a weightless Texas Rig, casting them to the most finicky bass. Since Flukes imitate dying baitfish, you usually fish them slowly with small twitches that make them dart side-to-side and flutter unpredictably. Think twitch-pause, dead-sticking, or jerk-jerk-pause retrieves. You’re not throwing bass a fastball or curveball—the Fluke is a knuckleball presentation.

For me, the Fluke is mostly a shallow water bass lure. But you can also fish it on a drop-shot rig to let it flail and flutter in place in deeper water where neutral bass are holding tight to cover. This is one of the best bass lures for the worst days of fishing—times when fish are pressured, turned off, and disinterested in faster presentations.

Bottom Line

If you let a Zoom Fluke flail in front of a bass—even one that’s turned off—its wounded minnow action may trigger a strike.

Best Soft Swim Bait

Keitech FAT Swing Impact

MSRP: $7.69

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON KEITECH

Why I love it

When I was a kid, I threw Sassy Shad in Iowa farm ponds for largemouth bass. Now that I’m older, I’ve graduated to Keitech plastics, such as the FAT Swing Impact.

I’ve found this soft-plastic swimbait to have better action than other paddle tails I’ve fished. The soft plastic, ribbed body, and prominent paddletail gives the Keitech FAT Swing Impact a lifelike action underwater. We see a ribbed piece of plastic. Bass see a shad or other baitfish.

The only downside is that Keitech plastics aren’t very durable. A single bass may chew it up. Still, they’re a lot cheaper than crankbaits. And they catch bass (as well as walleye, big crappie, and other gamefish).

Bottom Line

If you want to swim a life-like minnow imitation through bass-infested waters, the Keitech FAT Swing Impact is a stellar soft plastic.

Best Topwater Lure

River2Sea Whopper Plopper

MSRP: Starting at $10.49

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON RIVER2SEA

Why I love it

Thanks to a kayak shuttle driver in Pennsylvania, I discovered the Whopper Plopper out-fished other topwater bass lures I’d been using for years. Since then, I’ve turned to it in several states in both largemouth and smallmouth waters.

This is a versatile topwater bass lure. You can fish it with a simple retrieve, letting the rotating tail prop churn up water to pique a bass’s attention. You can also work it with pops and pauses, too.

The Whopper Plopper is also kayak-friendly because you’re less likely to snag a floating topwater lure while you’re floating downstream.

Bottom Line

If you’re casting topwater around sunrise or sunset, the Whopper Plopper is a productive bass lure that triggers savage strikes and half-true fish stories.

Best Walk-The-Dog Lure

Heddon Zara Spook

MSRP: $9.99

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON HEDDON

Why I love it

The Jitterbug and Zara Spook were the first topwater lures I fished as a kid. Too many years later, I still “walk the dog” with the Heddon Spook.

The Heddon Zara Spook is the original, dog-walking topwater. Walking the dog is a classic topwater technique that lets cigar-shaped lures zig-zag on the surface like an injured baitfish, frog, or terrestrial that made a terrible life decision to swim over a hungry bass.

I’ve caught most of my bass on the Heddon Spook with a consistent, walk-the-dog action, where, with a little slack in the line, I use short twitches of the rod tip and take up some of that slack to impart the side-to-side action. That said, slowing things down with more pauses can be the ticket to more smallmouth bass. Such was the case the last time I walked the dog in Wisconsin.

Most of my Spooks are green—the color of frogs and bluegill—but clear and white Heddon Spooks better imitate dying baitfish on the surface.

Bottom Line

Walking the dog with a Heddon Spook is a rite of passage for bass anglers and a fun way to trigger savage strikes on the surface from active bass, especially at sunrise or sunset.

Best Deep Diving Crankbait

Strike King 5XD

MSRP: $9.99

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON STRIKE KING

Why I love it

Most of us know the 5XD from KVD—professional angler Kevin Van Dam. Because of its curved lip, it’s one of the best bass lures if you want to get a crankbait down to fifteen feet quickly. Its internal rattles can also attract bass. And its chunk profile promises a big meal.

I often paddle shallower waters and cast towards the shoreline, but the Stike King 5XD is my crankbait of choice for those days when I’m fishing offshore over deepwater structure.

Ideally, you want your crankbaits to be ticking bottom, and with this in mind, the 5D fishes best in 12-15 feet of water. I prefer casting cranks—just because it’s more fun. But I also troll them from my kayak to catch bass in open water where there’s more rocks or grass than trees to snag.

Bottom Line

If the bass are down in creek channels or the bottom of drop offs, the Strike King Deep Diving Crankbait is one of the best bass lures to reach them.

Best Lipless Crankbait

Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap

MSRP: $8.99

Buy from:

BASS PRO SHOPS AMAZON BILL LEWIS

Why I love it

I’ve caught all species of bass from farm pond largemouth to reservoir striped bass and river smallmouths on the good ole’ Rat-L-Trap. It’s one of my favorite lures to search for active bass, especially on flats, points, and mid-sized rivers.

As its name suggests, the Rat-L-Trap rattles underwater, making a lot of noise that attracts patrolling predators and territorial fish. Plus, this lipless crankbait has plenty of vibration and flash, especially if you buy it in chrome colors. Those features add up to an annoying lure that’s been pissing off bass for decades—leading to both hunger bites and reaction strikes.

It’s also on my list of the best bass lures because it’s fun to fish. Fish often smash Rat-L-Traps since they’re made to trigger the most active fish. You won’t catch negative or neutral fish on the Rat-L-Trap, but when bass are in beast mode, they’ll smash it.

Bottom Line

If you prefer active presentations or lack the patience for finesse fishing, the Rat-L-Trap is one of the best bass lures to bust bass that are aggressively feeding or protecting their territory.

Bass Lure Buying Advice

The key to buying bass lures is covering all the bases of different techniques and tactics for bass fishing. On one hand, bass anglers should amass an arsenal of lures for bass in active, neutral, and negative feeding moods. On the other hand, anglers should have a choice of lures to catch bass on the surface, in shallow water, and in deep water.

If you stock up on the bass lures we recommend, you’ll be able to catch largemouth, smallmouth, spots, white bass, and stripers in most scenarios.

Here are a few tips:

• Spinnerbaits, swimbaits, and crankbaits can cover lots of water, which lets you search for fish and catch the most active, easy-to-catch bass.
• Carry topwater lures, such as the Whopper Plopper and Heddon Spook, to catch aggressive bass on the surface, especially at dawn and dusk.
• If you’re fishing with a lighter spinning rod, throw Ned rigs and 4-inch Slider worms next to weed beds for less active bass tempted by slowly falling lures.
• To fish deep-water structure, buy some deep-diving crankbaits and soft plastics you can fish Texas-rigged or Carolina-rigged, such as flukes, plastic worms, craws, and creature baits.

If you’re fishing shoreline from a kayak, cast topwater lures at sunrise and sunset, and switch to swimbaits, flukes, and jerk baits when the sun is out.

Best Bass Lure Brands

• Berkley
• Mepps
• Rapala
• Strike King
• Yamamoto
• Zoom
• Z-Man
• Heddon
• Charlie Brewer
• Bill Lewis
• River2Sea
• Booyah Bait Co.

Why Trust Us

A regular contributor to Kayak Angler, Jory Brass has been catching largemouth and smallmouth bass for more than 50 years. As a Gearhead Expert at Backcountry, he was one of the outdoor retailer’s top 10 anglers in the annual Backcountry Summer Adventure Challenge. He personally owns hundreds of bass lures, including all of the lures recommended in this guide.