Indice dei contenuti per March 2026 in Bassmaster

Sometimes in sports, the ball doesn’t bounce your way. That apparently also applies to the “spiky ball” lures that have become popular in pro bass fishing. And when the spiky ball bounces out of a fish’s mouth, you get to see some of the realest, rawest emotion, even from a cool customer like Kyoya Fujita. This epically painful moment was captured on the final day of the 2025 Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite at Lake Fork, just after a big Texas largemouth managed to spit Fujita’s bait, which you can see arcing through the air. While that may have been a low point during the week, Fujita enjoyed some of the most incredible fishing in Elite Series history while at Lake Fork. The Japanese angler, who’s drawn attention for his electronics…

The images below were submitted by Bassmaster readers, and our antique tackle expert, Rob Pavey, appraises the value of each fascinating find. To submit yours, email editorial@bassmaster.com. Bumble Bug with box and paper Jeff Dooley, email $50 to $65 The cleverly designed Bumble Bug was made in the 1940s and ’50s by Gowen Manufacturing Co. of Gowen, Mich. The short-lived wooden models are the oldest and rarest, but the plastic versions, like the one shown here, remain popular with collectors of small-maker tackle companies. It’s unrelated to the modern bait by the same name marketed by Rebel. The Prez lure with box Walter McCloud, email $10 to $15 (with box and paper) Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., captured the hearts of voters in his successful 1976 presidential…

Z-Man Rattle-Snaker $13.99 | zmanfishing.com Features: Small details like rattles can make a huge difference in fishing, and the Z-Man Rattle-Snaker makes it easy to insert rattles into soft plastics It works especially well in Z-Man’s ElaZtech material, which holds for a long time and doesn’t rip Also can be used to insert small weights into baits for a different fall rate or action Livingston Walking Boss II $15.99 | livingstonlures.com Features: Another killer bait from the Livingston lineup comes in the form of a topwater walking bait with a twist Unlike a traditional walking bait that requires twitches, the Walking Boss II has an oversized bill and jointed body that bring the bait to life on a steady retrieve The other fish-attracting aspect is Livingston’s EBS Technology, which emits…

IN RETROSPECT, IT’S not difficult to think Chris Johnston’s second consecutive Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year title in 2025 boiled down to three days in April during the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series event on Lake Hartwell, where he was able to “extend” the spawning season with a unique pattern. The Canadian pro didn’t win the event — he finished 31st — but Johnston caught more than half his fish by specifically targeting bass described as fry guarders. These are the male bass who spend several weeks guarding their recently hatched fry. Fry guarders generally move completely away from their nests and usually into slightly deeper water. In some cases, Johnston has realized that fry-guarding fish are even much deeper. “These are fish we never knew about because we never…

1 [Patterning Points] Points are prominent features in almost every reservoir and fishery in the country, and in the prespawn they can be incredibly productive places to find big bass. Why Points? While there’s never really a bad time to fish points, the prespawn offers some of the best fishing. After bass spend the cold months in deeper holes, points provide obvious stopping points for fish transitioning to their spawning grounds. Think of them as gas stations along a stretch of interstate. Not only that, but points are good ambush spots for bass feeding on shad and crawfish. Main-lake points are their first stops, while secondary points in the creeks and major tributary arms see more activity as the bass get closer to making their beds. Depth The type of…

What’s the best finesse bait to throw around shallow stumps? Bart Shortall, Facebook Bassmaster Elite Series pro Brandon Cobb There are two ways I would attack that situation. I would consider wacky rigging a Zoom Fluke Stick on a hook with a weedguard. If the water is deeper than 5 feet, I put a nail weight in the head of the worm to get it to sink a little faster. If it’s shallower, I fish it weightless. Another of my favorite techniques around cover is a Zoom Trick Worm on a 1/8-ounce Greenfish Tackle Clean Up Shakey Head. I throw those rigs on a medium-action Ark Cobb Series Hartwell Magic 6-10 spinning rod with an Ark Gravity Series GS5 spinning reel. I use 8-pound-test Cortland Master Braid with a 10-or…

It’s midsummer near the Brazilian border with Paraguay, and a herd of capybaras is making its way through a pasture beneath the legs of several dozen cows. A few feet away, the tea-stained waters of a lagoon lap over rows of basking black caimans, their golden reptilian eyeballs fixated on the footsteps of both rodents and bovines. In the distance, white Stetson hats bob atop cowboys pushing horses through the swampy pastureland. Somewhere in the dense jungle beyond, a jaguar may be napping below the broad leaves of a hulking fig tree. Welcome to Brazil’s answer to the Everglades — the Pantanal. American bass anglers are familiar with Brazil. Its waters have long been a bucket-list destination for anglers dreaming of boating peacock bass and arapaima in the black bayous…

WE ROUNDED THE dock face and eased along the left side as Drew Benton’s walking topwater traced the perimeter. Suddenly, he released the trolling motor pedal and whispered, “There’s one. She’s under that dock cable.” As Benton secured his topwater rod and picked up a flipping stick with a Texas-rigged Nories Front Flapper, he noted that the fish’s position beneath the cable probably gave her a sense of security, but it would almost certainly present a landing challenge. Right on both accounts. As bed fish go, this one was moderately easy — no pushover, but she immediately showed signs of agitation once the bait sank. “Got her,” Benton grunted, as his line snapped tight and the rod flexed. Within seconds of biting, the spunky 4-pounder bolted topside and flipped over…

OVER THE LAST couple of years, the market for glidebaits has exploded. Every bait company has seemingly released its own versions as more anglers discover the potential of a glidebait, not only as a big-bass slayer, but as a reliable tournament presentation as well. But not all glidebaits are built the same — or priced the same, for that matter — and different styles of glidebaits shine in different scenarios. Looking through all the options can be overwhelming. Luckily, Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series pros Carl Jocumsen and JT Thompkins are glidebait connoisseurs and use them in many different scenarios. With their help, we’re going to dive into the different categories of glidebaits, how to employ them and some helpful advice that every angler should know about when to use each…

Congratulations to the newest members of the Bassmaster Lunker Club™. Membership in the club is free and open to any B.A.S.S. member who catches a largemouth bass weighing 10 pounds or more, a spotted bass weighing 5 pounds or more, or a smallmouth bass weighing 6 pounds or more, from Jan. 1, 2025, to the present. New Lunker Club members will receive an official certificate with holder and a gift pack. 12-15 Grady Moran 1 Lake Butler, Florida Yamamoto Senko (black and blue) rigged weightless 12-3 Johnny Bihlear 2 Santee Cooper Lakes, S.C. 5-inch Yamamoto Senko 11-14 Randal Moyer 3 Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas Berkley Dredger 20.5 12-9 Kellen Davis 4 Lake Hamilton, Arkansas Megabass Oneten jerkbait 10-8 Ben Cox 5 J.B. Thomas Reservoir, Texas BL8NKT OUTDOORS swim jig 6-4…

ANDREW GARDNER STILL remembers his high school shop class on Long Island. He remembers the assignment from Mr. Kasten — build a wooden box — that resulted in Gardner receiving an F. Even as a teenager, the future seven-time world champion fish decoy carver refused to play by the rules. Instead of a box, Gardner carved a brown trout. Mr. Kasten, famed for his hard-nosed teaching, flunked Gardner for marching to his own drum. Decades later, the black spot on Gardner’s high school report card is a distant memory, but it’s one whose butterfly effect is still rippling through the world of sportfishing today.   F Is For Fishing Though Gardner, now 50, has called the west coast of Florida home for decades, memories of his childhood in New York…

  IT TOOK BRANDON Palaniuk all of two spots to realize he might be on to something. While late April on Santee Cooper Lakes is typically prime time to look shallow, the weather leading into the 2023 AFTCO Bassmaster Elite Series event was not cooperating. Overcast, windy, chilly — basically one of the worst hands to be dealt. Then again, that suited Palaniuk just fine. Because staring down at his forward-facing sonar after a shift deeper, everything that stared back at the veteran pro was very much to his liking. Well, almost everything. He’d found giants sitting in staging brushpiles — the type of fish that give a pro a shot to win — and they were more than willing to show themselves, rising up like missiles to look at…

Fisher Anaya has his choice of prespawn fisheries. His hometown of Eva, Ala., sits midway between Wheeler Lake and Lake Guntersville, down the road from the wafting smell of Big Bob Gibson’s world-famous BBQ or arguably the most legendary bass fishery on the planet. At 20 years old, Anaya is already a TNT Fireworks Bassmaster Team Championship Classic Fish-Off winner and the 2025 Nitro Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers presented by Bass Pro Shops Angler of the Year. Safe to say he’s living high on the hog, but he didn’t get there without a lot of work and a lot of practice in his own backyard. Anaya may be a new-school prodigy, but one of his favorite March patterns is a throwback to the 1960s: pounding sunny shell mounds with a lipless…

By the time you see this shot of Jay Przekurat calmly playing down a giant Lake Fork largemouth, the Wisconsin pro will already have two events in the books in his fifth Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series season. Compared to some pros, five seasons is a short tenure, but in these days of ever-increasing, ever-younger talent, the 26-year-old has already gone from an off-the-radar Northern pro with a tough-to-say last name to a perennial Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year contender whose name everyone now knows. Consider that in his four completed seasons on the Elite Series, Przekurat has never finished outside the Top 10 in the AOY standings. He’s earned two Top 10s in the Bassmaster Classic and 10 in regular-season Elite competition. To cap it all off, he’ll forever…