Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society

Fighting for Bass and Bass Anglers’ since 1973

How big can we go ?

Perceptions of size.

Whilst lure-fishing for bass last summer, & failing miserably to connect, I clipped on a small metal lure, & quickly hooked a big feisty Mackeral. Then half-way in, the Mackeral went completely bonkers as a bass did it’s best to try & nail it. The sight was fascinating, as a bass of around 5lbs did it’s very best to find an angle to swallow this sizeable Mackeral. I was guilty of pausing the Mackeral at my feet in the clear water, and watching the stand-off. I eventually managed to spook the bass whilst reaching for my camera, but the encounter got the cogs turning and the coal burning in my head.

Do we limit ourselves too much on lure size?

An angler casting a big lure
An angler casting a big lure at sunset

I was getting no joy that morning, yet the bass were frustratingly present. The Mackeral was bigger than any lure in my armoury that morning, so what did that mean?

175mm lure
A 175mm lure

The bass were feeding, but I clearly wasn’t presenting anything to them that was convincing enough to induce an attack. Was I fishing too small, or was I not presenting the lure in the correct way? Of course the sensible thing to do was to switch to live-baiting tactics, but being a lure junkie and not being entirely practical and sensible, it just presented a scenario which needed to be cracked with a lure.

If you look into your lure box on your next trip, what will you see? My feeling is that perhaps 90% of anglers will see that 90%+ of their lures are between 100mm and 145mm long. There might be a bonus 175mm lure in there, and there might be something smaller, but in many cases the 100 – 145mm range will have a strong presence.

Experienced live-bait anglers will already know just how big a bait a bass will hit. They’ll also know that we would rarely ever fish a lure that size.

A selection of big shads
A selection of big soft plastics rigged & ready to use

I’ve personally had bass this year on lures up to 300mm long, and regularly fish lures 200mm long. Anglers often scale-down to ‘match the hatch’, but how often do we scale-up to match the bigger prey that the bass may be targeting?

Clip a ‘big’ lure on, cast it out & give it a fair go …. you might get a surprise !