The 3 Best Night Time Bass Fishing Lures
Night time bass fishing is a super underrated strategy, especially for the warm months of the year.
When the bite gets tough in high water temperatures, many bass will do the majority of their feeding at night when things are a bit cooler and the sun isn’t blinding.
Because bass have a sixth sense, they are fully capable of hunting with limited vision in the dark.
Another great thing about night time bass fishing is that your lures can be simplified way down, making your job a lot easier. These are the three best night time bass fishing lures.
Quick Lure Criteria:
There are a few characteristics that make lures better for night fishing. So if you do plan on branching out from the three baits on this list, at least try to stick to baits that have these characteristics.
- Single Hook: Treble hooks can be dangerous to handle and remove from fish in the dark. Single hooked lures minimize the risk of hooking yourself, your clothing, or external things like branches/snags.
- High Vibration/Sound: When bass have limited vision in the dark, they tend to rely more on their sixth sense or vibration to accurately eat their prey. So baits and lures with a bit of sound or vibration are ideal.
1. Bladed Jig (Chatterbait)
When it comes to subsurface moving baits, I pretty much exclusively use a bladed/vibrating jig.
The thumping blade puts off a ton of vibration and allows me to fish the bait at a variety of speeds and depths if I need.
I can cover tons of water with a bladed jig, and it is probably my most effective bass lure at night.
The bladed jig is also extremely easy to fish, which helps a lot when you can’t really see very well. You don’t need to worry if the bait is swimming properly because you can feel it working through the rod tip.
You don’t need to worry about it being in the perfect water column because it has enough vibration to draw bass in from a distance.
The bladed jig or chatterbait is potentially the most popular bait in all of bass fishing, and I think that it separates itself even more once the sun goes down and the nighttime bass start to bite.
If I could only have one bait for all my night bass fishing scenarios, it would be a bladed jig.
2. Buzzbait
If you have ever been around a pond or lake at night, you probably heard fish splashing and blowing up on the surface.
Bass absolutely love pinning forage against the surface at nighttime because when the bass look up at the prey, the prey is contrasted against the sky, making them fairly easy to see even in the dark.
So bass will crush topwater lures at night. And the buzzbait is the loudest, most obnoxious topwater lure that you can throw.
Additonally, the buzzbait is also a single hook bait, which makes it better for nighttime fishing than baits like a plopper or popper.
The buzzbait tends to work the best when you fish it in very shallow water near some sort of structure.
That could be a dock, a bridge, a grass line, or simply the bank itself. Topwater fishing is one of the best ways to catch night time bass, and the buzzbait is by far my favorite topwater lure for the job.
3. Jig / Magnum Worm
Although bass will be much more active at night, there are always some bass that prefer to stay near the bottom and eat more sluggish prey.
For these bass, I either fish a casting jig or a big magnum worm rigged up on a Texas rig. I fish them both the exact same way. Just hopping and dragging them along the bottom.
When it comes to choosing one over the other, I can’t really give a great reason other than general preference and feel.
Sometimes I feel like the jig is better and other times the worm is better. I’ll generally just fish them both and see which works better on any given night.
Additionally, feel free to use bigger trailers on your jigs and make sure you are using bigger, 9+ inch worms for your Texas rigs.
You want these baits to be a on the big side because they don’t have tons of vibration or sound like the other two lures.
Of course, the trailer of the jig will have some vibration as well as the big ribbon tail on the worm. But compared to the other lures, it is very little vibration.
So you want to make sure that your jigs and worms have an overall big profile so that they displace more water, making them easier for the bass to feel.
And and overall bigger profile will help the bass see the baits a bit better in the dark. When the night time bite gets tough, slowing down with a jig or magnum worm can be the best option.
Best Lure Colors at Night
Black. Pretty much the only lure color I ever use during the night is black.
The reason is that black creates a much more clear silhouette in the dark water conditions, which helps bass hone in on the baits better.
And because everything is so dark, you don’t need to worry about matching the hatch perfectly, because everything looks pretty much the same at night.
Reeling this In
Nighttime bass fishing transforms a tough summer grind into an exciting, productive adventure. By focusing on lures that emphasize vibration, size, and simplicity, you play directly into a bass’s sensory strengths while keeping your own experience manageable in the dark.
Stick to the “Big Three”—the bladed jig for coverage, the buzzbait for surface action, and the magnum worm for those stubborn bottom-feeders.
Keep your tackle boxes simple and your colors dark; a black silhouette is often all you need to trigger a massive strike. Next time the heat index climbs, wait for the sun to drop, grab a single-hook bait, and experience the underrated thrill of the midnight bite.
