Early season bass baits?

[dgi]

What do you guys use early on, just after the ice melts or for some of you the water starts to warm?
I'll start with a t-rig senko, shallow cranks and a jig w/ trailer.
Any better ideas?

[Luke77]

during winter, I like to use baits the fish don't have to chase so I avoid spinners etc...

a variety of soft plastics retrieved very slow along the bottom for largemouths, and I like large bucktail hair jigs like the BPS Smallmouth Enticer for river smallies. Smaller 3 inch craw colored tubes work very well for me all year around with buckets, Smallies and Spotted Bass.

[CrappiePappy]

What do you guys use early on, just after the ice melts or for some of you the water starts to warm?
I'll start with a t-rig senko, shallow cranks and a jig w/ trailer.
Any better ideas?

... with "ice out" conditions :p But, in the transitional stage of water warming from the 40's into the 50's ... I have caught Bass slow rolling a spinnerbait. Usually they can be found in the tributary creeks, slowly making their way back towards the incoming water ... especially if the incoming water is warmer rain runoff. When I was much younger than what I was in my Bass fishing days ... we (my grandparents, uncle, & myself) used to wait for rising water caused by warm spring rains. We'd go to the backs of creeks, and fish on the bottom with live nightcrawlers. We'd hook the crawler once, thru the band, and cast it out from shore .... then leave the button pushed (we only had spincast reels) and wait for the fish to start swimming off with the crawler.

Once the water temp starts working its way into the high 50's - lower 60's .... I always had my best luck on a jerkbait. Casting straight to the bank (using baitcast equipment) then retrieving at a 3jerks-pause-2jerks-pause cadence. My best all around jerkbait was a "Rebel Minnow" ... chartreuse back/silver sides/white belly. When "Rebel" stopped making the chartreuse back version .... I just painted the black back version :D (sprayed the black back with white, then sprayed the white with chartreuse). Pre-spawn females, that were cruising the banks to feed up before spawning time, were very suseptible to this bait & technique. Balsa jerkbaits were the "in" thing, at that time ... but, they would rise back up to the surface too quick, for my taste. The "Rebel Minnow" was a plastic bait, heavier and bigger bodied than the balsa ones. It wouldn't "suspend" during the pause, but it did rise much slower. The chartreuse back was visible during the retrieve, off and on, and that helped you keep the bait running true, plus it served as a bite indicator .... 'cause, when you saw the chartreuse bait disappear in a flash of white, you knew a big ol Bass had just scarffed it up The bait was tied on with a loop knot, usually 12lb test mono .... and the cadence of 3/p/2/p/3/p seemed to make the bait "walk the dog" ... but, underwater !! I was a rookie Bass angler, in those days ... and I probably never landed a Bass larger than 5-6lbs. But, I did hook several that would have gone close to 8lbs ... they were just too much for an excitable young man to handle :p

... cp

[brushnjigs]

Water in the 40/50s suspending jerkbaits with long pauses between twitches not jerks. 50 degrees or up on sunny days crankbaits/jigs/jerkbaits in that order. 60 degrees and up dont forget the floating worms hooked up wacky style.

[fultondalecrappie]

Rattletraps work in Alabama

[Tenntodd]

A fellow fisherman caught a 6 & 8 pounder on a Cotton Cordell Rayburn Red lipless crackbait last week at Guntersville. We said he was slow rolling it. I guess they like those in Bama.....
I prefer a 3" chartruse grub bounced off of the bottom or a small profile black/blue jig worked very slowly on the bottom.

[78mudbug]

im going somewhere different than the other guys.im going to say a carolina rigged lizard when the water hits 50 to 65 degrees throw it out and drag it slowly across the bottom

[caseydrew]

Suspending jerkbaits are really tought to beat.....also a shakyhead will put them in the boat.

[Foxy]

Carolina rigs and heavy jigs dragged across the bottom as well as drop-shotting are popular options