Top 8 Bass Fishing Trends to Keep an Eye On

If you’ve been bass fishing for a while, you know that you’ll develop your skills, feel like you know everything, and all of a sudden, the whole community will start ranting and raving about some oddball new technique you never thought of. 

More importantly, there will be tons of videos, articles, and personal stories about how that new technique is the best thing since sliced bread. 

Those are trends, and some of them are amazing. Some of them fall flat and die out in a month. In any case, there are some unique benefits to keeping up with them.

We’re going to go over the top 8 bass fishing trends we at BassForecast think will stick around for years to come, and then we’ll explain a bit more about trends and why they’re important.

1: The Free Rig 

This has been around for a while, but we highly doubt you've seen it since our audience is mostly from North America. Well, it’s gaining steam over here in the States, and there’s a good reason for that.

The free rig originated in Japan, and while it’s extremely simple, it provides a pretty unique and natural presentation.

All you do to set it up is slip a bass-casting sinker onto your line. Don’t tie it. It’s supposed to be like a Carolina rig where the weight freely slides around and allows the lure to drop behind it.

Next, tie on a worm hook, and we recommend using this rig with a creature bait, craw, or worm.

This rig is meant to draw in strikes in the fall, and the soft plastics we mentioned provide a lot of action during the fall without looking unnatural. They resemble diving worms and lizards or craws as they sink back down to the bottom.

Because of this, you want to use this rig similarly to a Texas rig. The difference is that you get more hangtime on the initial drop, and if you use a slow hopping retrieval, the lure will take longer to catch up to the weight. Think of it as a slowed-down Texas rig.

We wouldn’t use this rig for punching or jumping around sketchy bits of cover. Since your lure will bop around unpredictably without the weight guiding it, you can easily get stuck in downed trees. If you try to punch through mats, you’ll find that the weight doesn’t punch through, and your lure can end up stuck on top of the mat.

2: Dense Plastics 

If you thought the short, pudgy, Yamamoto Senko bait looked a little odd when it hit store shelves, these are just like that. Except they’re fatter, and the plastic is denser.

They really look like someone went to the bathroom in the lake, and most of the brands that are starting to make these stateside are cleverly titling their lures to poke fun at that. Consider the Deps Cover Scat, for instance.

As silly as they seem, they are working wonders here in the States just as well as they do in Japan.

Their dense plastic makes them extremely resistant to wear and tear, and they produce a sort of subtle wiggling as you pull them through the water.

They might not look pretty, but you might want to pick a couple of them up to try out.

3: Hover Rigs 

The hover rig is yet another Japanese creation, but it’s a bit more serious than the last one. A hover rig uses a soft jerk bait threaded onto a 90-degree shank hook, and the same type of weight you use for the popular Ned rig is inserted into the head of the lure.

In terms of setup, these are similar to Ned rigs, but that 90-degree hook shank gives it a horizontal presentation that looks like a bait fish swimming. A Ned's head looks like a bait fish is diving.

While it’s a minor change, it makes the setup one of the very few effective techniques to catch difficult-to-tempt open-water-suspended fish.  It is usually fished on a spinning rig using a light line as a horizontal slow swimming presentation. 

Pro tip:  Gently shake or tap your rod as you reel slowly and steadily to impart a more realistic oscillating swimming-type action. 

You can pick up pre-made rigs that you just stick a lure on, or you can make the rig yourself fairly easily. If you make it yourself, remember that the right-angle shank should protrude about a quarter inch behind the head of the lure. This gives you room to add the nail weight, and it makes the head move around while you present it.

4: Jika Rig

This is similar to the popular Texas rig we all know and love, but instead of putting a bullet weight ahead of the lure, you use a split ring to attach a dangling casting weight.

This rig doesn’t punch through the cover as hard, and it doesn’t make the lure nose-dive immediately, but it is excellent if you love flipping and dock shooting. It’s more compact, and since the weight is attached to the lure, it can’t slide off and throw your cast off.

You can buy these commercially, or you can buy some casting weights and split rings to set it up on extra-wide worm hooks.

Since these drop more sporadically, we recommend using them with craws and creature baits. The rig makes better use of the many tendrils and flappy bits those lures have.

5: Tokyo Rig

This is the same concept we just talked about, and it’s very similar to the Texas rig. The difference is that, instead of flipping or dock shooting, you use this for drop shots.

Create the same rig setup as you would for the Jika rig but attach a dropshot weight to the split ring.

Between the Texas rig, Jika rig, and Tokyo rig, you have three different ways to present a lure on the drop, each one excels in different situations, and you end up with a well-rounded toolbox of tricks. Even if this doesn’t stick as a trend, it’s worth trying out.

6: Big Spoons

Usually, when you think of a bass fishing spoon, it’s only an inch to three inches long unless you’re saltwater fishing. Well, giant spoons are something to take a look at after they start getting used in US bass fishing tournaments effectively.

Spoons up to 8 inches in length are getting chucked off major drop-offs to lure in bass with what appears to be a giant shiny meal, and there have been success stories in the professional field, already.

The pros tend to lead trends a lot of the time, and you shouldn’t be surprised if you start occasionally seeing giant hunks of steel or copper dangling from heavy rods this season.

This one is not likely to pick up too much steam, but it’s odd enough that it’s worth giving it a try and adding one or two of these big spoons to your box. Especially if you fish around a ledge fishery or a fishery containing large gizzard shad, crappie, or other big baitfish. 

7: The Pink Plastic 

This is going to annoy some anglers, make some tickled pink, and come as news to others. This trend is carrying over from last year and the beginning of the season, but pink lures are in.

These have been popular with trout fishermen for a long time, but you should see plenty of pink swimbaits, jigs, worms, craws, and everything else on store shelves.

Color is a difficult factor to consider in the fishing world. Especially when it doesn’t match the hatch. However, a lot of anglers are swearing by their pink lures, and there’s plenty of evidence of them catching big bass online.

This isn’t a big trend that completely revolutionizes the sport, but if you’re at the tackle shop, you might as well spend a few bucks on a bag of pink worms and see how well it works for you.

8: Gear Personalization 

Finally, there was once a time when you wouldn’t think of messing with your brand-new, expensive, fishing gear. It was designed for a specific purpose, it was made well, and you used it as intended.

Now, there are a lot more people personalizing their gear to meet their specific needs and give their gear more personality.

In terms of customizing things to meet unique needs, we’ve already talked about a few minor examples of this with rig building. Taking the traditional Texas rig and adapting it for different drop rates and styles, adapting the Ned rig for horizontal presentations, etc.

Well, it gets more complex than that. Grip replacements to create unique looks or switch to more comfortable setups, leveraging tech-enhanced equipment to add a customized technological edge to classic pieces of kit, and similar methods are being used to really personalize an angler’s kit.

This is one trend we hope sticks around. As an angler, you’re always looking for the best new thing to use, but getting comfortable with a piece of equipment and making it truly unique both in look and function adds sentimental value. Not to mention, it adds a bit of variety to gear reviews instead of everyone looking at the same trendy setups over and over again.

Which of These Trends is the Best?

In terms of the trends that are function-based on this list, the one that seems the most important and helpful is the growing popularity of the free rig.

Everyone is familiar with the Texas rig, and this only changes one small step when you attach the weight. So, it’s not only something everyone’s familiar with, but most anglers have casting sinkers in their box that they rarely use. This is a chance to use them, and it gives you a whole new way to use a staple fishing technique. Out of them all, this is the one we see sticking around the most.

The hover rig is also likely to become a staple in the west just like it has out east. It’s just as flexible as the Texas rig, but it presents the lure horizontally instead of vertically. While it does require a slightly more complicated setup, it will become a lot easier and more popular as anglers start adding more unique bits to their tackle boxes. The only thing close to it is the wacky rig, and that works solely on the drop.

Why is it Important to Keep an Eye on Trends in the Bass Fishing Community?

Usually, following societal trends is bound to waste some money. Fidget spinners are the perfect example of that. However, there’s a real point to following trends in bass fishing.

There’s always a way to improve your bass fishing experience, and trends tend to develop because something is working.

Even if a trend doesn’t become a staple of the bass fishing world that every angler uses, you typically learn a new trick that can come in handy in certain situations. Whether that’s a new way to tweak the Texas rig to nab finicky bass, or if that’s a new lure that makes it easy to fish a variety of styles without switching baits, new skills are always welcome.

Whenever a trend really starts picking up steam, you see influencers using it, pros using it, or other anglers catching fish with it at your spot, try to pick up a little bit of what’s needed to try it, and see if it works. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Try These Trends in New Water Ways with BassForecast

If you want to try some of these new trends at an all-new body of water, check out our BassForecast fishing app to understand what top lures will be in play based on real-time weather for your fishing location, best bet lake locations and presentations, weather data, and more to give you the edge. 

Additionally, the app features expert tips and real-time solunar to optimize your fishing times, ensuring you're casting your line when bass are most active. 

Whether you're a novice or a seasoned angler, BassForecast provides the tools you need to increase your success and make every fishing expedition a memorable one.