What's your go-to lure for April bass in the South? (Shutterstock image)
March 25, 2024
By Ken Duke
In his celebrated poem “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot claimed that “April is the cruelest month.” That proves just one thing: Eliot was no bass angler. If he had been, “The Waste Land” would have been a very different poem. It might look something like this:
April is the greatest month, bringing
Lunkers into shallow water, crashing
Topwaters near spawning grounds, mauling
Swimming worms in grass, putting
Smiles on the faces of anglers in the South.
You see, April is like that, at least in the South. It’s occasionally cold, but it’s just as often hot, and because it marks the spawning season throughout much of the region, the fishing can be off-the-charts outstanding. What’s more, it can be simple.
Just ask Oklahoma bass pro Edwin Evers. Few can match his résumé on the tournament trail, and no other angler has won both a Bassmaster Classic and a Major League Fishing Redcrest championship.
Evers believes you can narrow your April bait selection to just three lure types and still cover the bass bases for the month. He believes in keeping things simple at a time of year when the fish are typically shallow, aggressive and predictable.
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“In April, I’m focused on water that’s usually no deeper than about six feet,” Evers says. “Not only does that narrow my bait selection quite a bit, but it’s a part of the water column that I can fish quickly and cover a lot of ground.”
JUST SWIMMINGLY Bass worms If covering water is your objective—as it often is at the start of a fishing day—few lures do it as well as the swimming worm. Cast, reel, repeat. It’s just about that simple, though the nuances are something best learned through time on the water and trial and error.
“I like a 6- or 7-inch paddle-tail or cut-tail worm for this,” Evers says. “My favorite is the Berkley PowerBait Wind Up in watermelon red, junebug or redbug.”
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Other swimming worms on the market include the Zoom Ultravibe Speed Worm, Strike King Rage Cut R Worm , Yum Swim’n Dinger , NetBait Big Bopper , Gambler Burner Worm and Big Bite Baits Tour Swim Worm .
Evers rigs the Wind Up Texas-style with a 5/0 wide gap offset worm hook behind a 1/8-ounce slip sinker, and he throws it on 14- or 17-pound-test fluorocarbon line. Occasionally he’ll scale up to a 3/16-ounce sinker if it’s windy and he needs the extra weight for casting or to maintain contact with the bait.
“The swimming worm is great on grass lakes, but I use it everywhere,” he says. “Just cast it out and reel it back slowly, like slow-rolling a spinnerbait or bladed jig. It’s best in water with at least a foot of visibility, and it’s a fish-catching dude that will work in all phases of the spawn—from pre-spawn bass that are preparing to go on the beds to bass that are on the nest to the males that are in the shallows and guarding fry after the spawn.
“The swimming worm is my No. 1 bait for April bass,” says Evers.
PROP UP Prop baits The topwater prop bait has been around a long, long time—at least since 1902 when Fred Rhodes introduced his “Perfect Casting Minnow.” The lure type has changed relatively little in the 120 years since then because it hasn’t needed to change. Prop baits have always worked, and it seems they always will.
“I reach for a prop bait in April when the water’s calm,” Evers says. “I like to fish them on the back [shoreline] side of boat docks, around laydowns and around grass—anywhere a bass might spawn.”
Evers’ favorite prop baits are the Berkley Spin Rocket and Spin Bomb . The Spin Rocket is long and slender, while the Spin Bomb is shorter and shaped like a panfish. The former is his go-to, and the latter is his pick when there’s a chop on the water or the water’s dirty. He likes bluegill patterns or chrome with a blue back and orange belly.
Other popular prop baits are the Rapala X-Rap Prop, the River2Sea Lane Changer and the venerable Smithwick Devil’s Horse, which has been a favorite for generations of bass anglers.
“I throw a prop bait on braided line with a short leader of 14- to 17-pound monofilament,” Evers says. “I don’t use fluorocarbon for floating topwaters because fluorocarbon sinks, and you need a mono leader with braided line, or else the braid will wrap and tangle in the front propeller.”
The best retrieve for prop baits can vary from day to day or even hour to hour, but Evers’ default retrieve is a slow one involving short, sharp twitches of his rod tip on a semi-slack line that cause the blades to rotate just a few times.
“Generally, the longer you let a prop bait sit between twitches, the more bites you get,” he says. “And with that style lure, I’m never fishing it all the way back to the boat. I’m usually just trying to cover a small area near a specific target. I’ll work the lure about five feet then reel it in quickly and make another cast.”
FROG BUZZ Frog and toad lures Rounding out Evers’ April trio is a lure that’s fairly new to the tackle world. The soft-plastic buzz frog debuted in 2004 with the Zoom Horny Toad . Now, dozens of manufacturers make their own versions, including the Stanley Ribbit , Strike King Super Toad , Yum Tip Toad , Culprit Incredi-Frog and the Berkley PowerBait Beat’n Paddle Frog . All offer buzzbait-style disturbance as the lure is retrieved across the surface, and all can elicit explosive strikes.
“What I love about buzz frogs is that they’re so weedless,” Evers says. “You can throw them into the thickest cover and they come right through. I like to throw them around grass, laydowns and in the backs of pockets. They’re especially great on ponds and smaller waters that may not see a lot of fishing pressure.”
The Oklahoma pro fishes the Beat’n Paddle Frog on 50-pound-test braided line—no leader—and rigs it on a 4/0 screw-lock hook.
His go-to rod is a 7-foot-4, medium-heavy Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris Platinum Signature casting rod , which he pairs with a high-speed casting reel.
“My top colors are black, white and watermelon red,” Evers says. “I like black when it’s cloudy, either black or white when the water’s dingy and watermelon red when it’s sunny and the water’s clear.”
PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER As Evers puts it, “April is wide open. It’s the perfect time to put the trolling motor down and go—just cast to whatever is in front of you along the bank.
“When I’ve been beaten in April tournaments,” Evers says, “it’s usually by someone who just put their head down and made a lot of casts with the right baits. Don’t make it more complicated than that.”
APRIL’S BEST BETS Hook the boat up and head for these Southern bass waters for outstanding springtime action. Florida’s West Lake Tohopekaliga is ripe with vegetation, making it an ideal spot for soft plastics worked on or near the surface. You don’t need to travel far to find outstanding bass fishing in April, but if you’re looking for the best of the best in the South, give these waters a try.
Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, FL : Just because the spawn is mostly over in Florida doesn’t mean April isn’t strong here. The Kissimmee Chain (which includes legendary West Lake Tohopekaliga) covers 21,000 acres and has more aquatic vegetation than you could fish in a lifetime—perfect for the swimming worm and buzz frog. Plus, prop baits like the Smithwick Devil’s Horse are still Sunshine State best-sellers for a reason.Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees, OK : When Edwin Evers says that the swimming worm is ideal for grass lakes, but that he uses it “everywhere,” that includes Grand, in is home state of Oklahoma. Despite covering 46,500 acres, there’s little in the way of vegetation here. Nevertheless, he says the swimming worm is his go-to.Lake O’ the Pines, TX : While the crowds line up at Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend, Evers recommends Lake O’ the Pines. At 18,680 surface acres, it’s a fraction of the size of the other two…and it just might be better than them in April.Chickamauga Lake, TN : “The Chick” has been ranked among the top bass waters in the country in recent years, and April may be the very best month for action. Chickamauga produced both the Tennessee record spotted bass and record largemouth bass—a 15-3 caught in 2015.Santee Cooper Lakes, SC : Lakes Marion and Moultrie cover more than 170,000 surface acres, and they’re about as good as it gets in April. With thousands of acres of vegetation, cypress trees, lily pads and other shallow cover, you’ll find plenty of targets to cast to, and plenty of bass ready to eat.This article was featured in the April 2022 issue of Game & Fish Magazine. Click to subscribe .
